Dean's Adventures in Babysitting
by AlexJanna
Summary: Dean had promised Sam he'd try living an apple pie life, but he'd had no idea it would be so freaking perilous. Smart-ass kids, helicopter moms, asshole husbands, creepy dudes in the park, and more drama than a daytime soap-opera abound. Dean's stuck wondering if he wouldn't have been safer sticking to hunting.
1. Dean's Adventures in Babysitting

**Title**: Dean's Adventures in Babysitting  
**Author**: AlexJanna  
**Fandom**: Supernatural  
**Pairing**: Dean, (past)Dean/Lisa  
**Series**: Apple Pie Life  
**Rating**: PG- PG13  
**Genre**: Gen, Post Season 5(disregard S6-8)  
**Word Count**: 9,748  
**Warning**: kids(lots of kids), abundant OCs, BAMF!Dean, parental!Dean, brief mention of child neglect

**Summary**: It all started with a hangover, a ringing doorbell, and a breakfast of champions. Dean just knew he shouldn't have gotten out of bed that morning.

**A/N**: One of my favorite things is Dean interacting kids. Like seriously. I always thought it was ten kinds of adorableness, so one day I decided to write him interacting with lots of kids. It turned out to be a Supernatural _Babysitter's Club_ knock-off. Enjoy it as much as I have.

*Note: There may be some disparity with Ben's canonical age, but for the purposes of this fic and series he is ten years old.

* * *

Dean had it rough. And by rough, he meant the mother of all hangovers, a stiff back, stiff neck, mouth full of cotton, and a gaping bleeding hole in his chest where his little brother use to be.

The light filtering in through Lisa's guestroom windows was stabbing him unmercifully in the eyes and his stomach was two shakes from shaking itself up and out of his mouth. God, he really hated tequila. Why did he always go for tequila when he was feeling sorry for himself?

Because whisky and scotch were too subtle to drown his post-apocalyptic sorrows.

Dean groaned and tried with little success to stop the midgets with drumsticks in his head from banging on his brain as he flopped over onto his back and swallowed back down that burger he inhaled the night before when it tried to make a getaway.

Fuck this. Next time he's so grabbing the good scotch. He deserves it after saving the world, so sue him.

It took him a moment, and a few more preemptive swallows, before he realized that it wasn't just the sun that had woken him up. The fucking doorbell was ringing off the hook as well.

He groaned again as the cheery chime made him want to pull a Van Gough and cut off his own ears. Yes, he knows who Van Gough is. He slept with an art major once and she was a talker… in and out of bed.

He waited a bit longer expecting Lisa to answer it, but then with another chime he realized that he had the vaguest recollection of her coming into his room and telling him she'd be gone the rest of the day. It was just him and Ben and apparently the kid doesn't answer doors.

Son of a bitch.

Pushing and pulling his way out of bed, Dean tugged on the smoky, beer stained pair of jeans he'd worn to the bar the night before and tumbled his way toward the front door. He'd completely forgotten to button and zip them up.

As he passed the living room, he caught a blurry glimpse of Ben glued to the TV, the Saturday morning cartoons blaring loudly. Maybe the kid couldn't even hear the doorbell over all that racket.

With a groan and tug he had the door open expecting to see a chipper sales person, Jehovah's Witness, or a Census worker. It took him a moment to realize that the obsessive doorbell ringer was down bellow eyelevel.

"What?" Dean growled near incoherently, eighty percent of his brain was still asleep.

Standing on Lisa's welcome mat was a little kid about Ben's age in a well loved dinosaur shirt, dark cargo shorts, and tennis shoes. His hair was a complete rumpled mess, as all little boys' are, and he was eyeing Dean like very bad smelling… something.

Dean figured the kid wasn't far off on that last one.

"Who are you?" The kid asked, his eyes suspicious and his nose wrinkled.

Dean frowned a little at him and looked down at himself. Bare-chested, scarred up, and hungover he looked like death warmed over with a side order of ugly. "I'm a friend of Lisa's, Ben's mom." He replied, his voice and head a little more clear now that his blood was pumping.

The kid still looked at him doubtfully, but shrugged it off.

"What? Are you selling cookies or something?" Dean grumbled, because he couldn't for the life of him figure out why any kid would want to be up at this time of the day. Regardless that he didn't even know what time of the day it was.

The kid scrunched his nose up again. "No!" He scoffed as if Dean was completely stupid. Maybe he was. "That's the Girl Scouts and it's the wrong time year."

"Right." Dean leaned against the doorjamb and rubbed at his face. Why were all the kids in this neighborhood smartasses? He ignored the fact that he'd only met two so far. Including this one with the dinosaur t-shirt and Ben.

Dinosaur kid shifted from one foot to the other a little impatiently before he finally huffed. "Can I come and play with Ben, or what?"

Oh. Of course. Dean shrugged and turned so that his voice would carry through the house over the noise of the TV. "Hey, Ben!" He yelled. "There's this kid-"

"Errol." The kid supplied.

Errol? Really? Dean eyed him dubiously before continuing. "This kid, Errol, wants to play with you!"

The sound of the TV shut off and Dean could hear a pattering of feet coming toward them. Ben bounced into his back and leaned around him to stick his head out the door. "Hey Errol!"

The kid –Errol- gave him a grin and waved. "Hey Ben."

Ben turned and looked up at Dean with hope shining in his eyes. "Can Errol come play?"

"I dunno. What would your mother say?" Dean asked, because this was so not really his job right here. He didn't know a thing about this type of kid stuff.

"Please!" Ben begged completely avoiding the question.

Dean stared down at the kid for a second and knew that without a doubt he was completely screwed. "Sure, whatever."

Both boys cheered and raced past him into the house before plopping themselves down in front of the TV again. Dean followed at a more sedate, stumbling pace.

Rubbing tiredly at his eyes, Dean glanced at the clock over the mantel. Nine-thirty. "Hey, you kids have breakfast yet?" He asked leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes.

Ben crawled off the floor and leaned over the back of the couch to look at him. "Mom made me cereal." He said.

Errol fidgeted a bit and tugged on his shirt kind of nervously. Dean frowned.

"I had some toast." The kid said.

Jeez, it's a wonder any of these kids aren't starving twenty-four-seven. He and Sam could clean out the kitchen in one morning when they were this age.

"That's not breakfast." Dean declared, pushing himself up again and turning back toward his room. "When I'm done cleaning up, I'll make you guys breakfast."

Ben and Errol just looked at each other and shrugged.

A nice hot shower and some semi fresh clothes later, Dean was padding barefoot into the kitchen and rummaging around in the fridge and cupboards for something to cook. He was absolutely starving. Of course the best cure for a hangover was greasy food, but he figured he'd make do with a ginormous breakfast instead.

"Hey, kiddos!" He shouted from inside the fridge. "What do you guys want to eat? We got eggs, bacon, waffles, I think I can make pancakes." He trailed off and started pulling anything and everything from the shelves and stacking them up on the counter.

"Can you really make all that stuff?" Ben asked as he climbed up onto one of the high stools at the bar.

Dean gave him an absent grin and nodded. "Sure. I used to do all the cooking for me and my…" he paused and swallowed the lump that suddenly lodged itself in his throat. "Me and my brother."

"Could you make pancakes?" Errol asked, looking doubtful and hopeful at the same time.

Dean nodded. "Sure thing, kid. You want anything on them? I think I saw some chocolate chips a second ago."

"You'd let us eat chocolate for breakfast?" The kid gaped, looking completely amazed.

Frowning, Dean shrugged and started mixing the ingredients together. "Yeah." He drawled. "I'm not gonna feed you any of that new age, health crap. A man could starve if that's all he ate."

Errol scrunched his nose in an action Dean was starting to associate with the kid. "That's all my mom lets me eat. She says whole grain is better for your digestive system."

That was a sentence Dean didn't ever want to hear come out of a red blooded American kid's mouth ever again. "You're not allergic to anything, are you?" He asked.

"No."

"Then we're gonna have a Winchester breakfast today. No whole grain, none of that tofu crap, and lots and lots of nice greasy bacon."

The boys looked doubtful, but were game to indulge him so Dean set a large mixing bowl in front of them and started instructing them on which ingredients to add while he fried up some bacon and worked on scrambling most of a dozen eggs.

Pretty soon the boys were covered in flour and Dean was praying that he could get the mess cleaned up before Lisa came home, but he figured that if the kids were having fun and not getting into trouble on his watch it would be alright.

Besides, he's pretty sure he saw one of those hand held vacuum cleaners in the hall closet.

"Alright, kids." He clapped his hands together and started moving the food to the kitchen table. "Wash your hands, and grab yourselves some silverware and plates. Let's dig in."

Ben and Errol looked at the mountains of food with a little bit of apprehension. Neither of them had really seen so much food for breakfast before. But it all smelled so damned good and they'd made the pancakes all by themselves (with Dean manning the stove, of course). They couldn't really not be excited about eating it all.

Dean flopped down into his seat and started piling eggs, bacon, pancakes, waffles, and fruit on his plate then started pouring syrup over one half and shaking large drops of Tabasco sauce and ground pepper over the other half. He scooped up a truly large forkful and shoved it into his mouth with a groan.

Damn, he cooked good.

Ben and Errol watched him in a mixture of awe and dubiousness. Dean just grinned at them with a mouthful of food. "Eat." He ordered, undeterred by their staring.

They started to tentatively pile food on their plates then when that was gone and eaten, they realized they were still hungry and started piling more on.

Dean watched with satisfaction. It wasn't right when little boys started talking about diets and health food and soy-whatevers. _This_, he thought, is how men eat.

Soon they were all stuffed to the gills and all of Dean's cooking was gone. The plate that held the two pounds of bacon on it was even licked clean. Errol had blushed at Dean's approving eyebrow, but couldn't help the happy grin on his face.

"Okay, then." Dean nodded with an impressed smirk. "Let's get this stuff cleaned up before your mom gets home."

With three pairs of hands, however inexperienced with cleaning up after themselves they might be, the dishes went by quickly. Soon, Dean was watching the boys fidget with renewed energy and maybe a little bit of a sugar buzz from the chocolate and syrup.

He knew the signs. That was the "I'm going to get into trouble or break something I'm so wired" dance and he was going to have to do something soon before they burned the house down trying to entertain themselves.

Dean eyed them then asked, "You guys want to go to the park?"

"Yeah!" They cheered.

The Impala rumbled down the street blasting Metallica and bouncing on its axels as the two little boys in the backseat nearly pinged off the roof with energy. Dean cringed and wondered what exactly he'd gotten himself into.

Parking across from the park, Dean found a little hand tugging at his jacket in hurried jerky tugs. "Yeah, Ben?"

"Play soccer with us." He said before he and Errol hopped out of the car and raced off toward the empty green field next to the playscape.

"Okay then." Dean drawled and got out of the car at a more sedate pace.

Steel toed work boots weren't necessarily optimal for kicking a ball back and forth, but Dean found it didn't really matter when the point was to keep the boys running as much as possible.

"Score!" Dean cheered, arms thrust in the air as he celebrated and jumped up and down.

"No!" Ben protested just as loudly. "You cheated! You're not allowed to throw it in!"

"What? What?" Dean taunted. "I couldn't hear you over the sound of my awesome score!"

Errol and Ben looked at each other then over at the adult with them that cheated just as bad a kindergartener. They were in complete agreement.

"Charge!" Errol screamed and launched himself at Dean spread eagle then latched onto him like a grappling hook.

Dean shouted in surprise and went down as Ben hit him from the other side. He was out numbed and he knew it so he let them wrestle him to the ground before he caught Errol's hands in a vice grip then planted his other hand on the kid's belly and pushed up. Errol went flying and landed on his butt laughing full bodied only to jump right back into the fray again.

Ben and Errol wrestled and pushed and were launched away for a good twenty minutes until Dean realized he either had to put a stop to the roughhousing or he was going to be in serious trouble. Whether that trouble was cardiac arrest or an unfortunate ten year-old knee to the nuts he figured it was a toss up.

"Alright! I surrender!" He shouted over the giggling and egging. "Enough! You got me!"

The boys jumped off him and raced away toward the jungle gym leaving Dean panting and groaning in the grass behind them. "Jesus," he breathed. "Kids are freaking vicious."

"You get used to it," said a kind, smiling voice from above his head.

Opening his eyes, Dean saw a pretty young woman looking at him upside down. "I'm Trisha." She said.

"Dean." He offered in return before rolling over and getting to his feet with a groan of pain. Man, the ground wasn't so good for his back.

Trisha chuckled at him and took his offered hand in a firm shake. "I've never seen you around here before. Are you new to the neighborhood?" She asked pleasantly.

"Sorta." Dean shrugged, bending down he picked up the jacket he'd shed an hour earlier and the soccer ball they'd found in Lisa's garage. "I'm an old friend of Lisa Braeden's. I'm kinda camping out with them for a while."

"Ah." Trisha nodded as if she understood perfectly. Dean seriously doubted that she did. "So you're babysitting today then."

Dean looked over to where Ben was swinging upside down from the very top of the jungle gym laughing his head off. "Yeah," he said, "I guess so."

Trisha followed his gaze then looked back at him and took in his dazed look and poorly concealed pride. Ah, that's it, then. She smiled. "Ben seems like a nice kid."

"Yeah." He grinned, knowing full well that his heart was stamped over his face. He didn't really care. He'd always liked the kid. "The kid's pretty cool, I guess."

"I have a daughter." Trisha offered. "Melanie, she's just turned six." She pointed toward the swings where a little girl with blond braids was pushing herself in the air.

"Awesome." Dean nodded, not really knowing what else to say. He'd never talked children in a park before. He was feeling somewhat out of his depth.

Seeing Dean's discomfort, Trisha smiled, "Would you like to join us?" She nodded toward the clutch of four other women standing around in one corner of the park laughing and clucking with each other.

He felt like his testosterone levels dropped a good few points for even considering it, but then again if he had to keep chasing after Ben and Errol for the rest of the afternoon without a reprieve he was going drop before lunch time. When in Rome, he figured with a shrug.

"Sure, I could use a rest for a bit."

Dean followed Trisha toward the other moms as he shouted toward the jungle gym. "Hey Ben! I'm gonna be over here!" He pointed to the women.

"Okay!" Ben shouted back just as he took a flying leap off the top rung and landed in a duck and roll that made Dean nod, impressed.

"Nice landing, kid!" He shouted over, receiving a pleased smile in return.

Glancing over at the women he'd just stepped up to, he found all of their eyes on him with varying degrees of shock, disapproval, and hunger. That last one made him fidget uncomfortably. One woman looked like she wanted to eat him.

"This is Dean." Trisha introduced with a rather dubious look herself. Apparently he lost points for encouraging Olympic worthy gymnastics on the playground. "He's a friend of Lisa Braeden's."

That seemed to ring a bell with the group. A couple of the women looked at him with more consideration than he thought was strictly necessary.

"Yo." He greeted with a small wave and tucked the soccer ball under his arm absently.

"Are you just going to let those boys jump off the jungle gym like that?" One rather uptight looking broad demanded with a sniff of disapproval that reminded Dean of an old principal he'd hated once.

"Um… yeah?" He said, uncertainly.

"They could hurt themselves." She said in a tone that seemed to imply that he should have thought of that all by himself.

Dean raised a disbelieving eyebrow at her and glanced around at the other women of the group. A couple of them rolled their eyes and looked like this was something the woman did all the time.

Ah. She was one of those. A helicopter parent; always hovering.

"Well, yeah, I guess." He shrugged unconcerned. "Isn't that what kids do, though?"

Helicopter-Mom was about to open her mouth and say something else equally disapproving and condescending when a shout from the jungle gym drew their attention.

"Hey Dean!" Errol waved from the top where Ben had jumped from. "Watch this!" He stood up on the rung and seemed to brace himself before he twisted and lunged. He spun in the air like a top before landing feet first in the sand with solid thud, his knees bent like a gymnast.

He seemed to blink to himself for a second before straightening up and turning back toward Dean with a wide pleased grin on his face.

"Woohoo!" Dean cheered with an equally wide grin. "Nice one, Errol! Totally awesome!"

Errol beamed and turned to chase after Ben who'd just tagged him.

Chuckling to himself, Dean turned back to find all the women looking at him again, Helicopter-Mom with a distinct scowl that could have melted the skin off his bones.

Dean blinked back at them innocently. "What? That was pretty freaking sweet."

Helicopter-Mom huffed in indignation and stomped away to grab a miserable looking kid with smooth combed hair and a pressed polo shirt tucked into his khaki shorts. The boy had been sitting glumly on the edge of the sand box with a notepad and a colored pencil box.

Dean and the other moms watched till she and her son were out of the park. "Yeesh. I feel bad for that kid." He said, his brain to mouth filter currently disengaged.

Cringing the moment the words were out of his mouth, Dean looked, but none of the other women seemed to mind his complete lack of tact.

"That was just Shelly." One of the other more laid back moms said. "She's a piece of work."

"Mm," agreed the woman next to her. "She wouldn't be such a bitch if her husband spent more time fingering her and less time fingering his Blackberry."

Dean blinked and had to tell himself to breathe for a moment before he completely lost it and doubled over in full bellied laughs. A strangled whimper of a chuckle escaped his hold anyway. Shit, he'd never heard anything so vulgar or hilarious come out of a suburban housewife's mouth before.

Trisha just gave him a sideways smirk when he calmed down a bit. "Shelly's not as popular as she likes to think she is."

"She's president of the PTA." Blackberry-Mom said. "She likes to be a big fish in an itty bitty pond."

"Be nice, Madison." Trisha scolded her halfheartedly. "Shelly is very good at running the PTA."

"Sure she is." The first woman next to Madison agreed. "She's just a tight-assed know-it-all control freak." She grinned like the sweetest kind of candy and turned predatory eyes on Dean. "I'm Laurie, by the way."

Dean shifted uncomfortably feeling a little like a mouse in front of a cat. "Hi." He nodded at her haltingly.

"Don't mind her." Spoke up the last woman of the group. She'd been quiet until then and had a soft sweet voice that barely carried over the laughter and shouts of the playground. "Laurie doesn't mean anything by it. I'm Jenny."

"Sure I do." Laurie grinned at Jenny lasciviously. "Dean here is one very attractive specimen of man."

Once again, Dean found himself unable to meet her hungry eyes. God, were all housewives that hard up!?

"Laurie is newly divorced and on the prowl," supplied Madison with an amused smirk.

"Ah." Dean swallowed thickly and edged closer to Trisha for any measure of protection. He'd met many women, slept with many women, nearly been made mincemeat by many variations of supernatural women, but never had he actually been made to feel like a nice juicy piece of meat thrown in front of a starving tiger by a woman before.

So, that's how it really feels to be objectified.

"So, Dean." Madison said. "What do you do?"

Good question. "Uh, not much at the moment. I've been… working with my brother until recently so I'm just trying to get my bearings a bit." He said. There, nice and uncomplicated.

"Oh? What did you and your brother do?" Laurie asked, making it sound like she hoped fervently that it had been something involving bad lighting, cheesy lines, and a lot of fake moaning.

"We worked in… pest control." Dean said, coming up with the first thing off the top of his head. It was sort of true. In an abstract, lying with a _very_ stretched truth kind of way.

"Mm." Laurie hummed and licked her lips like a cat.

God, Dean reached up and tugged at his collar with a shaking hand. Was it really that hot out here?

"Stop it." Jenny scolded her friend softly. "You're making him uncomfortable."

Laurie pouted, but desisted with the lecherous looks and come-hither leering.

"So," Dean started when the conversation waned. "Is this what you ladies do at the park? Just stand around and talk?"

"Pretty much." Madison nodded and glanced back around toward the game of tag that was going on. "Not much else to do."

"Huh." Dean figured this was just as good as sitting on his ass in front of the TV back at Lisa's.

"Is that Errol Flynn that you brought here with Ben?" Laurie asked as she watched said boy run after another kid with a bright smile on his face.

"I guess." Dean shrugged watching the scene along with them. "He just showed up on the doorstep this morning wanting to play with Ben. He's cool."

All four of the moms turned and looked at him with incredulous faces. "What?" He asked confusedly.

"Nothing." Trisha assured him. "It's just that Errol's a bit of a… handful."

Dean frowned at that.

Madison snorted. "That's an understatement. Dana got called to the school three times last semester for Errol."

"Dana?" Dean asked.

"Errol's mother." Jenny said. Dean was starting to realize that the woman barely spoke. There was just something soft and delicate, almost fragile about her. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it bothered him no end, set off every protective instinct he had and made him want to grab a weapon and start looking for something to kill.

Trisha scoffed and shook her head with obvious disapproval. "If you can call her that. Dana's quite the workaholic. I'd be surprised if the boy sees her more than three times a week."

That didn't sound too bad to Dean, but then again he and Sam had to fend for themselves in motel rooms for weeks on end and that wasn't exactly the best living environment for anyone much less a lone ten year-old kid.

He looked over toward the kids' game again. Errol looked healthy, happy, a little mouthy maybe, but not necessarily neglected.

"He doesn't seem so bad. Has a bit of an attitude maybe, but…"

"There's nothing wrong with him." Trisha interrupted. "He's just not getting the attention he needs. There's no father to speak of and if it weren't for Rosa, I don't think the boy would be nearly as well adjusted as he is now."

"Rosa?" Dean felt like he was getting the skinny on the whole damned neighborhood. If only he and Sam realized how much women gossiped, they wouldn't have had to do half as much research for a job as they did. This little playground clutch of moms was like a goddamned gold mine.

"Dana's maid." Laurie said. "She's El Salvadorian, I think. But she only works every other day, so Errol gets himself to and from school most days."

"Mm." Dean nodded. So, Errol was a latchkey kid. Not bad, maybe a little bit of a lonely thing for a kid so young, but not so bad. At least he would be able to take care of himself unlike that poor kid with the Helicopter-PTA shark for a mom.

"Anyway," Laurie interrupted his thoughts, "Errol gets in trouble a lot, or so I hear. A bit of a class clown; pretty disruptive."

"Hey, everybody likes a little laughter to break up the boring, eh?" Dean chuckled.

"Oh, you're one of those." Madison grinned at him. "I bet you had all the teachers wanting to wring your neck and all the girls wanted to hang off it."

Dean just blushed and rubbed at the back of said neck. "I wouldn't say that." He shrugged.

The conversation continued on and Dean got the lowdown on half the neighborhood. He knew just about every piece of good dirt the women could dish out from who was boffing the gardener to who was being investigated by the SEC. Dean was freaking loving it.

Of course, he'd never realized quite how catty and all fangs and claws suburban housewives could be, but it was damned entertaining. When Ben and Errol called him over to join in their game he was a bit reluctant to go.

See Sam, he thought to himself as he threw his jacket and soccer ball on the bench next to the group of women. See, I'm doing the apple pie life and it's certainly not what either of us expected.

And it's still damned lonely without you here to mock me through it.

Shaking off the maudlin thoughts, Dean got a very quick and almost incoherent rundown of the rules of the game and was soon running just fast enough to keep out of reach of a little girl named Sydney as she chased him trying to tag him "it" whatever that was. Dean was pretty sure they weren't talking about the freaky killer clown.

An hour later, he was out of breath and seriously flagging on his energy levels. God, kids were like freaking energizer bunnies. They just kept on going and going. A quick glance at the clutch of moms and Dean realized that every woman over there was watching him with approval and different levels of desire that he wasn't going to touch with a ten foot pole.

"Alright!" He panted, planting his hands on his knees as he struggled to breathe. "I'm done, kids. I gotta sit out for a bit." Man, and he thought chasing shapeshifters, black dogs, and werewolves was a fucking workout.

"Aw!" Ben bemoaned and ran up to him with pleading eyes. "But you just started!"

Dean laughed humorlessly and grabbed the kid by the shoulder for support. "Sorry, Ben. I gotta rest or you're going to have to drag my ass back home. I'm about to have a heart attack."

Ben frowned at him. "It's all those cheeseburgers you eat." He said assuredly. "They're clogging your arteries."

"What? Do you even know what an artery is?" The kid sounded too much like Sam for either of their well being. It made his chest hurt with something that wasn't his heart about to give out.

Ben thought about it for a moment before grinning and shrugging.

Scoffing, Dean scrubbed his fingers through the kid's disheveled hair and pushed him away back toward the other kids. "Go play, kid."

Finally, left to cough his lungs up in peace, Dean became aware of a pair of light blue eyes staring at him rather intently. Glancing over, he straightened up and saw Trisha's little girl watching him from the swing set. Her face was unreadable and very intent.

Dean watched her back and raised a curious eyebrow when she jumped down and walked toward him in her little white sandals and white and blue flowered sundress.

"I'm Melanie." She informed him as she came to a stop not two feet in front of him.

"I'm Dean." He returned not really knowing what was going on. Little girls weren't really his thing. Little boys he had no problem with since he just had to keep them fed and occupied, but he'd never in his life had to deal with a little girl beyond saving them from a monster or pulling them from a poltergeist ridden house.

"Will you push me?" She asked.

"What?" He asked incredulously. He wasn't going to push a little girl! First of all you don't hit girls unless they hit you first and second of all you don't hit _little_ girls. That's just wrong.

"On the swings." She clarified and Dean gave her an "oh" of understanding.

"Uh, sure." He followed her toward the swings and waited until she was situated just right and had smoothed her dress down just so.

Melanie glanced back at him as she took a tight grip on the chains. "Okay. Go."

"Uh." Dean lifted his hands apprehensively and pushed against her back with as little pressure as possible. He didn't want to hurt her or send her flying out of her seat.

"Harder!" She demanded in a high voice drawing the eyes of the Mom Clutch. "You have to push harder."

"Um… okay." He rolled his shoulders awkwardly and took a steadying breath. He felt like he was going to break her. Planting his palms high on her shoulder blades, he gave her a good push that sent her swinging away with an excited squeal.

"Again!" She giggled and started pumping her legs to keep up the momentum.

Huh. That wasn't so bad. Dean smiled a little to himself and gave her another push when she swung back toward him.

Melanie seemed to approve because she leaned back with a bright smile on her face and pointed her toes like she wanted to touch the sky. It was a beautiful sight; the kind of beautiful that makes you pull over on the side of the highway just so you could watch the sunrise.

It reminded Dean, strangely enough, of the times when he and Sam would park in a field in the middle of nowhere and just stare at the sky and all its stars. And with that memory, Dean had never felt the hole in his heart more acutely.

God, Dean swallowed the lump in his throat, he missed Sam like a phantom limb.

"You having fun, Melanie?" He asked, clearing his throat to cover up the sudden roughness of his voice.

"Yep!" Melanie grinned at him upside down as she swung back toward him. "You push better than my mommy."

Dean chuckled and shrugged. "That's cause I've got stronger arms, sweetheart."

Melanie giggled and closed her eyes seeming to simply enjoy the feeling of weightlessness and the wind on her face. Dean suddenly envied her immensely for her carefree smile.

He didn't know how long he spent just pushing Melanie on the swings, but eventually the sun was on the opposite side of the sky and Dean's belly was telling him that it was past time to eat again.

Glancing over at the sound of foot steps he shared a smile with Trisha. "Thank you so much for pushing Melanie on the swings."

"Nah," Dean shrugged it off as he gently caught Melanie on her downward journey and lowered her with the swing till her feet could touch gravel again. "It was kinda fun."

Trisha gave him a doubtful, knowing smile, but turned to her daughter. "It's time to go get lunch, honey."

"Aw." Melanie whined as she twisted in the swing back and forth absently. "Do we have to?"

"Yes." Trisha gave her a stern look. "Now say thank you to Dean and let's go."

The little girl heaved a very put upon sigh before standing up and darting forward to wrap her little arms around Dean's legs in a tight hug. "Thank you, Dean. You're the best pusher ever."

Dean patted her on the shoulder awkwardly and blushed like a… well, like a little girl. "Any time, squirt."

Melanie grinned up at him and stepped away to grab her mom's hand.

Trisha smiled sweetly and held out her other hand. "It was nice meeting you, Dean…"

"Campbell." Dean finished for her and shook her hand. "You too."

"Trisha Walsh." She supplied at his questioning look before turning and starting to walk back down the street toward her house. "I hope to see you again. You're a nice addition to the clutch."

Blinking at her knowing use of his nick name for her group, Dean just chuckled and waved before he turned around and started to round up Ben and Errol.

All this playing made him _hungry_.

With a wave at the other women, Dean had soon piled a sweaty and flushed Ben and Errol into the backseat of the Impala and pointed it in the direction of food.

"Alright, where do you boys want to get lunch?" He asked at a stoplight.

"Burgers!"

"Burgers!"

Dean chuckled. "Alright. That I can do."

He pointed the car toward the hole-in-the-wall burger joint he'd discovered the first time he'd ventured out of the suburbs and turned up the volume on Blue Oyster Cult.

By the time they pulled into the drive through, Ben and Errol were singing along loud and out of tune and Dean couldn't help singing with them.

This was the most relaxed he'd been in… a very long time, probably since that ill-advised trip to a brothel with Cas, and Dean didn't want to think about it ending anytime soon. He was having fun. Innocent, PG rated fun, but still it was better than sitting alone watching nothing on TV and drinking himself into another hangover.

Three cheese burger combos with Dr. Peppers and extra fries later, Dean, Ben, and Errol were seated on the benches around the back of the joint chowing down and chattering like chipmunks.

Dean just listened to the never ending commentary and enjoyed the early afternoon sunlight through the leaves of the trees. It was peaceful, calming. And so not his life.

At least it used to not be his life. Now, Sam had given him no choice and he needed to adapt or parish.

Sighing, Dean wrapped up their trash and ushered the kids back toward the Impala to head back to Lisa's. It'd been a good day. A very good day.

* * *

Why is it that Dean was never allowed to sleep in mornings? When he was growing up, it was PT supervised by his dad, Sammy's breakfast, or weapon maintenance. When he was on his own it was always driving to the next hunt, interviewing witnesses, or talking his way into a coroner's office.

Now, with the apocalypse over, his brother and father dead, his angel off policing heaven, and his hunting mojo hung up in the closest like an old coat it was doorbells incessantly ringing.

Sighing tiredly, Dean rolled out of bed and pulled on a pair of jeans. At least this morning he wasn't hungover.

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" He shouted as the bell went off again. Ben popped his head over the back of the couch as he shuffled passed and Dean gave him an off handed wave.

"What?" Dean grumbled as he opened the door only to find Errol Flynn on the welcome mat once again. "Oh."

Errol shuffled nervously from foot to foot and looked up at him through his messy windblown bangs. "'Morning Dean. Can I come play with Ben today?"

Dean ran a hand through his hair and nodded, "Sure, kid," stepping back from the door. Errol slipped passed him and disappeared into the living room with Ben.

Sighing again, Dean resigned himself to yet another Saturday with rambunctious ten year-olds and couldn't really bring himself to mind too much.

Well, he thought, might as well get cleaned up and start breakfast.

Not thirty minutes later, Dean had bacon sizzling on the stove, scrambled eggs in a bowl, and biscuits in the oven. He'd enjoyed his breakfast with Ben and Errol so much the Saturday before that he'd gone to the store with Lisa during the week and loaded up with breakfast food.

If made him feel just a tad bit like a Mr. Mom, a wolf in domesticated clothing, but he couldn't bring himself to care too much what with Ben and Errol concentrating so hard on mixing up the pancake mix with just the right chocolate chip to blueberry ratio.

Dean was about to start popping the waffles in the toaster when the doorbell went off, again. Huh… he already had one stray in the kitchen, who could it possible be at the door at… nine-forty-five on a Saturday?

"Hey, Ben. Come and pop these in the toaster while I grab the door, okay kid?" He asked while he wiped his hands off on the dishtowel hanging out of his back pocket.

Dean padded quickly through the living room and slid to a stop at the front door, turning the bolt and tugging it open.

And there on Lisa's welcome mat was Madison Strait from the Mom Clutch at the park. Her thick wavy dark hair was pulled back in a haphazard bun and she looked flushed with the heat of the morning.

"Good morning!" She smiled widely at him even as her eyes scanned him from head to foot. She took in the well fitted dark t-shirt, the flour on his cheek, the smell of bacon wafting from behind him, and the faded jeans that hugged him in _all_ the right places. And his bare feet.

God, she was a sucker for bare feet… too bad she was still madly in love with her husband, Don. But hey, as long as she eats at home, she figures it doesn't particularly matter where she gets her appetite.

Dean fought the blush that started up when he realized that Madison was undressing him with her eyes. "Uh- good morning."

The sound of his voice seemed to break her out of her daze and she flicker her eyes back up to meet his. "Yeah, hey, I'm sorry to ask you this, but I have to drive across town for a doctor appointment and my babysitter just canceled on me. I was hoping that Lisa would be here and wouldn't mind watching Sydney and Clark for me until I'm done."

It was then that Dean realized that it wasn't just Madison on the welcome mat, but standing on either side of her was her nine year-old daughter and her six year-old son.

Dean blinked and looked back up at Madison. "Oh, well sorry, but it's just me and Ben today. Errol showed up earlier this morning and I was just making them breakfast, but…" He trailed off realizing that Madison didn't exactly seem put-off by that.

"Oh! Well, that's perfectly alright." She said and started to push her kids forward until Dean was forced back from the door or else be plowed over. "I'll pick them up sometime after lunch, feel free to discipline them if they misbehave, and don't let Clark eat any nuts, he's allergic. Thank you so much! I can't tell you how much I appreciate this." She said all in a rush.

Dean was having the darnedest time trying to follow along. A quick glance at the kids said that they were used to their mother's word spew.

"Be good for Dean, babies. Love you! Bye Dean!" She smiled brightly at him, darting forward and planting a kiss on his cheek before she was rushing away like the hellhounds were after her.

Dean, Sydney, and Clark just watched her drive away in a daze. Closing the door, Dean turned the bolt and looked warily down at the two new kids in Lisa's house. They were watching him back just as warily.

"Well, it's probably good I bought extra stuff for breakfast then." That was all he could think to say.

Sydney and Clark didn't say anything to that.

Ben looked up from where he was sneaking chocolate chips from the bag to see Dean come back to the kitchen. "Who was it?" He asked.

Dean looked a bit dazed, but he just ran a hand over his face before stepping away to reveal Sydney and Clark Strait. "Sydney and Clark's mom was dropping them off to hang for a while." He explained when neither boy looked like they were going to say anything.

"Do you think we can share our breakfast with them?" Dean asked rhetorically as he flipped the bacon and opened another package. They were going to need more eggs as well.

Ben just shrugged. "Sure. You wanna help me add the chocolate chips, Clark?"

The little boy flashed an eager smile and looked at Dean questioningly.

"Knock yourself out." He said. "We're going to have to make another batch anyhow. You can help Ben with that."

Clark bounced on the balls of his feet and rushed over to climb up on the stool next Ben. "Cool." He said.

Dean looked over to see Sydney and Errol eyeing each other with growing blushes on their cheeks. He felt his mouth drop open before he felt a rush of pride. Wooh! Way to go Errol.

"Hey Sydney." The little boy blushed and gave a pancake splattered wave.

"Hi." The little girl smiled shyly back.

"D-do you wanna help me with the blueberries?" He asked, stuttering a little in his nervousness.

"Okay." Sydney smiled and climbed up on the stool more gracefully than her little brother.

Dean watched the kid for a moment while he waited for the bacon to start popping. It reminded him a little of when Sam came home one day in the third grade with the hugest crush on Kristen Bell in his class. The poor kid could barely string three words together without blushing and stuttering.

At the time it had been so freaking hilarious that Dean couldn't help, but pick on his sullen little brother.

Smiling a bit to himself at the memory, Dean turned back to the stove and started doubling up all the proportions. Four growing kids along with Dean's bottomless stomach were bound to eat a hefty hole through the fridge.

Soon they were all seated at the kitchen table and Dean was struck by just how different eating a meal with a little girl could be. Didn't they tend to be more delicate and polite in their eating habits?

Sydney, much to Dean's surprise, snagged the Tabasco right out from under his hand and started pouring it over and across her bacon and eggs.

When she looked up at the stunned silence that had fallen over the table she just blushed and shrugged. "What? My dad eats his eggs like this and I like it."

"No, no." Dean assured her and pushed the pepper shaker toward her plate. "By all means. You're a woman after my own heart." He grinned at her as he took the Tabasco back from her and started pouring it over his own plate.

Sydney blushed and smiled prettily at him before digging into her food.

Errol watched the whole thing, before he got this determined look on his face and snagged the Tabasco after Dean had set it down and started throwing it over just about everything on his own plate.

Dean watched with great amusement as Errol took a huge bite and turned bright red, sweat beading on his forehead.

"Take it easy with the sauce, kid." He advised belatedly, a smirk on his lips. "You gotta build up a tolerance first."

Ben and Clark broke out into helpless giggles as Errol grabbed his orange juice with a white-knuckled hand and started downing like it was going out of style.

Dean couldn't take it anymore and started laughing as well. He could get used to hanging out with kids all the time. They sure as hell weren't as crazy as adults.

After breakfast, everyone cleaned up and plopped themselves down in front of the TV to watch the rest of the Saturday morning cartoons. Dean sat, stretched out on the sofa with his bare feet on the coffee table while the kids were all manner of curled, sprawled, and laid out in front of the TV with mountains of lounge pillows they'd pulled from Ben's room.

Dean was having a blast watching reruns of _G.I. Joe_ that he remembered from his childhood, but soon began to notice that Clark's attention was waning and Sydney looked less than happy about watching another boy show.

"Alright, kids." He started as he sat up. "Let's do something else. We can't sit inside all day."

"Yeah!" Ben started bouncing on his knees as he turned around to look at Dean. "Let's go jump on the trampoline."

"You have a trampoline?" Sydney asked, with hope and excitement in her voice.

"Yeah." Ben nodded. "We can play Crack-The-Egg."

"Alright." Dean clapped his hands together and stood up. "Let's do this!" Not that he knew what "crack the egg" was, in fact it sounded kinda painful, but if the kids were up for it, he figured he could at least supervise.

Everyone started jumping up with eager smiles on their faces, but Sydney's smile suddenly dimmed and she looked down at herself morosely.

"What's up, sweetie?" Dean asked when he saw the little girl's frown.

Sydney looked up at him with the saddest eyes he'd ever seen. God, these kids were going to kill him, he just knew it.

"I can't play on the trampoline." She said in a quiet voice. "My mom says I'm not allowed to do things like that in a skirt."

Dean looked and for the first time really noticed that yes, Sydney was indeed wearing a flowy pink and purple skirt that went down to her knees.

"Oh." He said. What the fuck was he supposed to do with that? He asked himself. He didn't know a thing about girls, but seeing that heartbroken look on Sydney's face, Dean just knew that he had to fix it somehow.

"You can wear a pair of my shorts." Ben offered, before Dean even really had to think about a solution.

"Really?" Sydney asked hopefully, her eyes flicking between Dean and Ben.

"Sure." Ben smiled at her and turned to Dean as if asking for permission.

Jolted a little bit to realize that he really was the one in charge, Dean shrugged. "If they'll fit her, I don't have a problem with it."

And that's how Dean found himself standing outside Ben's room waiting for Sydney to finish changing out of her skirt. He felt awkward and out of place, and completely stupid. And what on earth was taking her so long?

"Hey, Syd." He called through the door awkwardly. "You about finished?"

"Almost." She called back over.

Dean sighed and leaned back against the wall. The boys were all outside jumping on the trampoline already and waiting for them so they could all play Crack-The-Egg.

Dean still wasn't real sure about that game.

Finally the door opened and Dean looked up to see Sydney standing barefoot in the doorway wearing her pretty purple and pink flowery t-shirt and a dark brown pair of Ben's shorts. She'd used one of the kid's belts to keep the shorts up seeing as how she was a bit smaller than him.

"Alright." Dean nodded uncertainly because he really didn't know what that look on Sydney's face meant. "Looks good. Let's go."

Apparently that was the right thing to say, cause she beamed and raced passed him, down the stairs, and out the back door before he could really comprehend that he felt more and more like a parent the longer he stayed in this cookie cutter house with these cool kids.

Standing outside next to the trampoline, Dean shook his head, crossed his arms over his chest and tried really hard to ignore the pleading looks all four children were hitting him with.

"I don't know..."

"Please!" Ben begged, bouncing closer to the edge of the trampoline. "It'll be fun!"

Dean flicked a glance at the kids' flushed excited faces before that niggling voice in the back of his head that was screaming "Danger! Danger! Will Robinson" crumbled in defeat and he sighed, very put upon.

"Alright." The kids all broke out into cheers. "But just for a couple of rounds."

The kids didn't seem at all deterred by that and just nodded eagerly while Dean shored himself up for what was sure to be a very big mistake and climbed up onto the trampoline with them.

"Okay, now you have to get in the middle and curl up." Ben reminded him.

Dean grimaced, but did as he was instructed and curled into the fetal position on his side with his arms wrapped around his legs. God, he felt like a lamb going to the slaughter. This was so not a good idea.

"Now, we have to try and crack you." And didn't that just sound pleasant.

The kids started jumping and Dean started bouncing and halfway through he thought, hey, this isn't so bad. He was curled into a ball and was being bounced up and down as the kids tried to get him to lose his grip and uncurl.

It was actually kinda fun.

Until Errol nearly jumped on top of his head and his arms and legs flew away from him in self preservation despite his best effort to hold on.

"Yay!" Clark cheered bouncing up and down. "We cracked you!"

Bouncing a little on his back, Dean stared up at the sky as his heart slowed down and he got his breathing under control. That wasn't so bad. It i_was/i_ actually… kinda fun.

"Alright!" He jumped up to his feet with a simple flex of his stomach muscles. "Who's next?"

The kids all cheered and another game of Crack-The-Human-Child-Egg commenced.

Dean, consequently was having a really rather great time. It kinda felt like he was kid again himself. Almost like he got another chance at a childhood to do the things he never even knew he'd missed.

He just wished Sam was there to experience it with him.

* * *

Lisa pulled up to her house in the early afternoon and paused in unlocking her front door as the sound of laughter floated from her backyard. Frowning to herself, she pushed the door open and was about to step inside when a familiar SUV pulled up and parked behind her car in the driveway.

"Hello, Madison." She called as the other woman climbed out and headed toward her with a smile.

"Hey, Lisa. Are you just getting home?" She asked tucking a fly away curl behind her ear.

"Yeah." Lisa nodded with a bit of frown. "What brings you here?"

"Oh, I'm just picking up Sydney and Clark. Dean was watching them for me while I was at my appointment." Madison explained with such nonchalance that Lisa blinked at her.

"Dean said he'd watch Sydney and Clark for you?" She asked to make sure she'd understood that correctly.

"Mhm." Madison nodded. "He's such a sweetheart. Said that Errol Flynn was already over for breakfast."

"Errol Flynn?" Lisa asked again, feeling rather lost. She couldn't really believe that Dean Winchester, the Dean Winchester who knew several very illegal ways to use his tongue, earned a living from hustling pool and credit card fraud, and who fought monsters and things that go bump in the night was babysitting a group of children.

Ben she could understand. Dean and Ben had a strangely close relationship and were so much alike neither would have any problem trying to entertain the other, but other unfamiliar children?

"Mm." Madison hummed, seeming not to notice Lisa's disbelief. "Poor kid's probably starved for the attention, but from what we saw at the park last weekend, he seems to get on really well with Dean."

Right, the park. Lisa remembered Ben telling her about that.

"Would you like to come in?" She asked, finally shaking herself out of her head.

Madison grinned at her. "Sure. I still have to pick up my kids, anyway."

Both women made their way through the house toward the backyard following the sounds of laughter and screaming. Passing through the living room, Lisa saw the mountains of pillows, Ben had hoarded for his TV watching forts all still piled in front of the couch. She glanced over at the kitchen and saw the kitchen table had the remains of what looked like a sandwich making station, the sink filled with soapy water and dirty dishes.

It was all kinds of surreal and it just got even more so when they finally made it to the backyard only to see 6' 1" and one hundred and ninety pounds of muscle Dean Winchester bouncing up and down on her trampoline with Ben, Errol, Clark, and Sydney.

He gave one enormous jump and did a perfectly executed backflip landing on his feet with his arms out and a shit eating grin on his face.

The kids cheered, Madison giggled, and Lisa just watched with her mouth open. This was the ghost of a man that had been haunting her couch and her guest room for weeks? That would drink until he slurred nearly every night before passing out in the wee hours of the morning?

The man that had saved everything, lost everything, and seemed to think he had nothing left?

Dean heard Madison's giggle and turned to smile at the two watching women. "Hey!" He waved and jumped off the trampoline. "How long were you watching?" He asked sheepishly when he got a good look at the appreciative look in Madison's eyes.

"Long enough." Madison purred causing Lisa to give her a confused frown. "I didn't realize you were so athletic."

There was that feeling again. Like being a juicy steak in front of a starving lion. Dean rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck and shifted on his bare feet. "Well, being in pest control you have to keep in shape." He explained.

"Pest control?" Lisa raised an eyebrow at him.

He just gave her a grin. "Yeah. Didn't I tell you that's what my brother and I did for a living?"

Lisa felt a little out of her depth. She'd never been all that good with lies and subterfuge. "Right, I just forgot."

Completely oblivious to the undercurrents between her friend and Dean, Madison just smiled. "I had no idea you were so good with kids either." She said. "I haven't seen Sydney and Clark that animated in a while."

They all looked back over at the trampoline to see Clark take a flying leap into the middle of the trampoline only to belly flop and flip upside down back onto his feet. Sydney gave a mighty jump and did the splits in mid air much to Errol's glaze-eyed elation.

"Nah," Dean shrugged nonchalantly. "They're good kids. And Sydney," he whistled, visibly impressed. "That girl can put the hot sauce away like no other."

Madison chuckled with him then frowned a little. "I could have sworn she was wearing a skirt this morning when I dropped her off."

At this both women had the bemusement, or pleasure, of watching Dean blush bright red. Lisa gave him a very severe eyebrow that said very clearly, Explain.

"She really wanted to jump on the trampoline, but said she wasn't allowed to in a skirt, so…" He shrugged uncomfortably. "We gave her a pair of Ben's shorts to wear."

Madison looked at him as if she'd never seen anything like him before, but then Sydney yelled at her mom to watch and proceeded to do a back flip summersault in mid air. Her face softened as she praised her daughter.

"You know, Dean." Madison said, making him tense ready for anything. "I can't thank you enough for watching them this afternoon. You're a God send."

That made an odd mix of bitter irony and warmth well up in him. If only they knew, he scoffed to himself.

Soon Clark and Sydney were being ushered out of the house by their mother, but only after giving Dean two of the most enthusiastic and tight hugs he'd ever received. It felt nice.

Turning away from closing and locking the door, Dean came face to face with Lisa. She had an odd knowing look on her face and Dean surreptitiously looked around for Ben or Errol to save him.

Of course, neither boy was anywhere near him, both choosing to head up to Ben's room to play video games. Little traitors.

"Dean." Lisa said catching and holding his undivided wary attention. "I think we have just found a way for you to earn your keep."

Dean felt dawning horror and waves of trepidation wash over him. He knew he should have just not answered the door that morning. Hell, not even gotten out of bed. Nothing good ever comes from getting out of bed.

Lisa ignored his wide eyed look of utter terror and simply smirked.

He was so screwed.

* * *

End


	2. Monster with Silk Ties

**Title**: Dean's Adventures in Babysitting: Monster with Silk Ties  
**Rating**: PG- PG13  
**Word Count**: 5,597  
**Warning** kids(lots of kids), abundant OCs, BAMF!Dean, parental!Dean, domestic/child abuse(minor characters), violence

**Summary**: There is one thing Dean hates more than evil son of a bitch monsters. It's men that leave hand shaped bruises on women and children.

**A/N**: Timestamp to Dean's Adventures in Babysitting. Some content may trigger, be advised.

* * *

The house was a mess. Kids were everywhere, balloons were everywhere, streamers were everywhere; Dean felt like his brains were going to be everywhere when he blew his own head off from the sheer chaotic torture of Party Saturdays.

It had become a bit of a tradition, more like a habit, a horrible, chaotic, nerve devastating habit, to have a party every Saturday. It was the day that Dean got up at the ass crack of dawn and baked a cake, pie, cupcakes, cookies, or what have you from scratch as a treat to the kids for being such perfect little angels during the week.

Dean had started to seriously question his own intelligence after he made that deal with Ben.

As it was, he was just pulling the five-layer chocolate cake out of the oven when the doorbell rang again. Dean cursed and hurriedly set the cake on the counter to cool before pulling off Lisa's truly ridiculously floral oven-mitts and hurrying on his way to the door.

As he passed the living room where his kids were sprawled in front of the TV playing a bastardized combination of Texas Hold'em and Candy Land, Dean counted heads and compared the number to the list in his head of confirmed attendees for the day.

He came up one short and smiled softly to himself.

Yanking the door open, Dean smiled at the quiet, delicate woman and her quiet, freakishly well behaved son on the other side. "Jenny! You are looking lovely this fine morning?"

Jenny blushed and ducked her head even as her lips curved up in a reluctant smile. "Dean," she scolded him, "You shouldn't say things like that."

"And why not?" He teased her with a devilish smirk. "I only ever speak the God's honest truth." He thought God was absentee dick and butter wouldn't melt in his mouth either.

Jenny looked him straight in the eye for a second with her eyebrow raised like she didn't believe that for a second, before she dropped her eyes to the ground once more.

Dean chuckled lightly at her incredulity and ignored the way he wanted to kill something when she hunched her shoulders shocked and mildly horrified by her own daring.

"I-I'm sorry for bringing Thomas late, Dean." She stuttered, having lost her courage for the teasing and joking. "I don't know what happened this morning. I-I just-"

"Don't worry about it." Dean waved off her explanations, not being able to stomach much more of her anxious efforts to placate him. "I just pulled the cake out of the oven and the rest of the kids are fleecing each other out of their candy stashes in the living room."

Jenny lifted her eyes to his again at this and shared a quick amused smile with him. It seemed that the longer Dean had known her the smaller and more skittish she had become. Getting her to smile at him was a challenge and maintaining eye contact was like pulling teeth.

He didn't know if he was just extra intimidating with his roughed edges, his tattered clothing, and his visible battle scars or if she was just naturally shy around men, but it had started to grate on him more recently. When he'd first met her and the other women in the park she hadn't seemed quite so… defeated.

"It's really no problem." Dean assured her again when it became apparent that she wasn't actually going to say anything. "I'm just glad Thomas got here before I started to serve the cake. With the rest of those vultures around, I highly doubt there would have been much left for him once they were done swarming."

He got a small giggle from Thomas for that and Dean grinned wider. The kid, like his mother, was quiet and shy and hard to bring out of his shell. But once he was out he was one extreme bundle of energy. Dean had the achy back and the creaky knees from running around after him to prove it.

"You want to help me get it all set up, Thomas?" Dean asked him, crouching down to be at his eye level. The kid blushed and ducked his head, leaning back against his mother.

No matter how many times Dean saw the kid and chased him around the yard and jumped up and down with him on the trampoline, every time Thomas walked in the door was like the first time. He had to coax the kid into loosening up all over again.

"I'll let you have the first piece." Dean wheedled at him with a wink.

"Okay." Thomas grinned and looked up at his mother for permission.

Jenny smiled sweetly down at him and pressed him gently forward. "Go on."

Stepping away from the door to let the kid through, Dean turned back to Jenny for a moment and smiled. "No kid can resist chocolate cake."

She chuckled lightly, another blush staining her cheeks as she started edging backwards toward her car. "I'll be back to pick him up at four." She called as Dean waved her off then she was gone.

Watching her car pull away and drive off, Dean fisted his hands to keep the shaking from rattling all the way up his arms. He was itching, positively craving a weapon in his hands and something big, bad, and evil in front of him so he could rip it apart until all that was left were bones, guts, and blood. Or shoot it or hack it to bits with a machete until it was just a bunch of meat and hide waiting for the vultures to pick at it.

Watching Jenny duck her head, shy away from his casual touches, and hunch as if to make her already painfully delicate stature smaller always made him crave the taste of rank monster blood on his tongue as it sprayed through the air with every swing of his arm. There was just something about her that made him think of a little hunted rabbit cowering in front of a hound.

Shaking off the bloody thoughts and the thirst for violence like an old perfectly fitted coat, Dean stepped back in the house and shut the door behind him. He had a dozen ravenous children in the house and one very sugary chocolate cake to get them hopped up on.

* * *

"Errol! Clark! I'm not going to warn you again!" Dean shouted out across the yard as the two boys in question started to seriously go at each other with the curved plastic swords Ben had begged for the last time Dean had let the kid con him into a trip to the toy store.

Dean was both mildly impressed with the two boys' talent for swashbuckling and seriously concerned for the safety of their soft squishy bits.

"If I have to hunt for any skewered eyeballs in the grass I'm not giving them back!" He threatened eliciting much gleeful giggling and delightedly disgusted sounds.

"That's gross, Dean!" Squealed Melanie from her little tea party at the kiddy sized picnic table on the porch with Laurie's seven year-old fraternal twin sons, Cary and Hugh.

The two boys looked at once mesmerized by Melanie and completely horrified that they'd let the dangerously charming little girl manipulate them into wearing plastic tiaras and pretending to drink tea like the Queen of England.

Dean chuckled evilly having no sympathy for the two boys and turned back to his monitoring of the rest of the kids out in the yard.

Between the trampoline, the plastic weaponry, and the numerous small, large, fat, and skinny implements around the yard, it was marvel that Dean hadn't had to set up a triage on the porch yet. He'd had a skinned knee earlier, but that had been easily forgotten after a few tears and a Batman band aid.

All in all, this Party Saturday seemed to be relatively laid back. Dean was even relaxed enough to sprawl out comfortably on Lisa's lounger nursing an ice cold glass of tea and working on his tan.

Until the sound of a pained cry ripped through his calm and he was up and sprinting to the trampoline almost before the sound faded into the breeze.

"What happened?" Dean asked, trying to keep his voice calm and modulated as he knelt by Thomas' tiny curled form on the grass by the trampoline. The boy was quivering and obviously in some serious pain, but he hadn't uttered a single sound after that first cry, he was biting his lip so hard to keep quiet it looked about to start bleeding.

"He came down wrong on the springs." Sydney said anxiously as she watched the scene from her perch on the trampoline, her eyes wide and worried. "Then he just fell backwards off the trampoline."

"Okay." Dean murmured as he stroked a soothing hand over Thomas' head feeling the boy's tremors through the entirety of his body. "It's alright. Can you breathe, Thomas? Don't move, just answer yes or no."

Thomas released his abused lip from between his teeth just long enough to whimper out a near inaudible yes.

"Did you hit your head?" Answered with a gasping no.

"That's good." Dean assured him, trying to keep a steady stream of calm words, his tone modulated so he didn't send all the kids watching this into a panic. "Keep still now, Thomas. I need to make sure you didn't break anything."

Gently, Dean started at the top of the boy's spine and ran his fingers over every vertebrae making sure everything was in its place and nothing was shifted or shattered. He got about half way down the kid's back before Thomas suddenly cried out again and tried to arch away from his touch.

"Whoa! Easy, Thomas. You're okay. Just hold still for me for a moment longer." Frowning, Dean continued his examination quickly with feather light fingers and the strictest of perfunctory movements.

"Nothings broken, but I want to take a look at your back inside, Thomas. Can you stand or do you want me to carry you?" The little boy, if possible, looked more scared and panicky than he had just after flipping head first off the trampoline, but he said he could walk and shakily got to his feet with Dean's help.

The walk into the house took longer than it normally would have, Thomas limping along with Dean supporting him as much as the boy would let him, the other kids trailing after them like skittish kittens, worry and childish concern leaking from their very pores.

"Thomas is going to be okay, guys." Dean assured them once he had the kid seated at one of the kitchen chairs. "Go back outside and play so I can concentrate on patching him up. No one play on the trampoline just yet, though."

He got some grumbling, but the kids were soon ushered out the house and back into the yard, giving the trampoline an exaggeratedly wide birth.

"Okay, kiddo." Dean crouched down in front of a hunched, quivering Thomas, Lisa's first aid kit open and disemboweled on the kitchen table. "Let's get a look at the damage."

It should have been simple. Thomas should have hiked his shirt up and Dean would have been able to apply some bruise ointment or a Spiderman band aid or just some freaking Neosporin and then the kid would have sat quietly for a few minutes while he got over his fall then he would be up and rocketing around the yard with the other kids like he hadn't just scared Dean half to death thinking he'd broken his back or worse.

Instead, Thomas was silent and stiff, curled so tightly in on himself that had his feet not been dangling an inch off the floor from the chair he would have been in the fetal position. When asked to turn around so Dean could get a look at his back Thomas looked like Dean had shoved him front of a firing squad without a last cigarette to ease his nerves.

"I'm okay, Dean." Thomas murmured in that soft near silent voice that grated so sharply on Dean's nerves with its wrongness coming out of the body of a little boy. It made him want to shoot something.

"You fell pretty hard, buddy." Dean said trying to seem as nonthreatening as possible. He felt a little bit like he was trying to coax a frightened animal out of a corner with nothing but a moldy piece of jerky and a crappy smile. "Just let me make sure you aren't bleeding then you can go back to playing with everyone else."

Thomas could have just acquiesced. Shown him the mother of a bruise already coloring on his thin back and Dean would have made some male-macho bonding comment about battle scares being total chick magnets and Thomas would have given him a fleeting, teary eyed smile and the afternoon would have gone back to normal.

Instead, Thomas kept his head bent and his shoulders hunched, his arms wrapped around himself as if he were cold and said, "It's okay. I'm clumsy. I get hurt a lot. I'm sorry, Dean. I'll do better- be more careful. I promise. I'm really sorry."

The only sound in the room was the slight hitch in Thomas' breathing and the furious sound of Dean's heart thundering in his chest.

_I'm really sorry_. The words echoed like a broken record over and over again in Dean's head and he sat back on his heels and _looked_ at the boy sitting in front of him.

Then it all suddenly synced together like some completely fucked up midnight showing of _The Wizard of Oz _with _Dark Side of the Moon_ for an audio track; disturbing and only comprehensible when looking at it sideways.

"Thomas," Dean said, voice more gruff and growly than he had intended, a strange explosive kind of calm blanketing him until he wasn't in the vicinity of eight very young, very breakable children. "I'm not mad. I can promise you that there is literally nothing you could possibly do that would make me truly mad at you." He took another calming breath when the only answer he got was a hiccupping sound that tore at his already fraying calm. "But right now, I really need to look at your back."

There was silence for a long moment and Dean almost thought he was going to have to try some other way of getting the kid to comply. Then Thomas lifted his head just enough to look Dean in the eyes.

He felt like he was being weighed and measured and should those much too old, haunted hazel eyes find him wanting then he would have failed at what felt like the most important test in the world right then.

"Promise?" Thomas asked, his voice not much louder than a mere whisper.

Dean held that heavy gaze, willing to crouch there for the rest of his life not even blinking if was what Thomas needed right then. He answered the little boy's question the only way he really knew how, with the nothing, but soul seared, bone deep truth.

"I promise."

Thomas sucked in a shuddering breath and with the barest of a nod slowly, stiffly shifted around until his back was facing Dean. Releasing a silent breath Dean hadn't even realized he'd been holding, he reached slowly forward and gently lifted the boy's shirt up far enough to expose his pale back all the way to the base of his neck.

What he saw would stick with him for the rest of his life safely locked away in that box in his mind labeled "Shit That Could Make Me Gleefully Pick Up The Knife Again". Not because it was so terribly gruesome or disturbing as anything else he'd seen in his long and varied life as a hunter of all that is nasty and evil and supernatural, but because he knew exactly what would have put bruising that severe on the body of a nine year old boy.

The bruising was yellow and green in paces, old and fading, but denoting of deep hurts and forceful injuries. The skin was dark purple, nearly black in other places, fresh and smarting and Dean spared barely a thought to being mildly surprised Thomas could move normally enough to have been jumping around on the trampoline in the first place.

The injuries were deliberate and systematic, the mottled coloring reflecting a pattern of blows that would have been quick and hard and nearly excruciating to a child whose body was all soft skin and fragile bones and delicate, still developing muscle.

Dean had to close his eyes for a moment. The images of the few scabbed over welts and scrapes, the gruesome evidence of a pronged ring, were scorched into his retina.

The sound a wretched choked sob brought Dean back to the situation at hand.

"Alright, Thomas." He said, his voice surprisingly calm and quiet given how loud his blood and rage were roaring through him like a flash flood. "I'm gonna get some bruise ointment on these then I'm going to put some band aids on these crapes. Is that alright with you?"

When he got a silent nod in response he set about his job. It was smooth going -if you could call bandage deliberately inflicted injuries on a frightened nine year old smooth going- until Dean got to what looked like it had to be the most painful hurt of the lot.

A deep jagged laceration surrounded by a black bruise in the center of Thomas' back. Almost detachedly, Dean understood that the injury was caused when the pronged ring caught on bumps of Thomas' spine with more blind force than deliberate precision.

The only sound the kid uttered while Dean was working on him was when Dean gently rubbed Neosporin into the injury and prodded around the bone a second time to make sure it wasn't chipped.

"I know it hurts, buddy." Dean murmured soothingly, the boy's little choked off whimpers only serving to fuel his fury. "Just a little bit longer and then you're all done. The pain medicine in this stuff will make it feel better. Just hold on a little bit longer."

One last band aid, a swab of bruise ointment and Dean was lowering Thomas' shirt back over his battered body. That seemed to be the straw that finally broke the camel's back.

It was almost disturbing how quiet he was, Dean thought as he cradled the shaking, quivering entirely too tiny and too fragile boy to his chest, being careful of his back, and soothingly stroking his hair and murmuring nonsense comfort into his ear. Thomas barely made a sound as he cried a river of tears into Dean's t-shirt. His sobs rocked his body like an earthquake, his hitched breaths caused worry for his ability to actually breathe, and his clutching fingers were digging so hard and sharp into Dean's shoulders he knew he'd have little finger shaped bruises dotting his skin.

When Thomas had finally tired himself out and Dean had given quiet instructions to Ben to make sure none of the other kids managed to kill themselves while he was otherwise occupied, Dean pulled his cell from his pocket and dialed number five on his speed dial.

"Hey, Lisa. I need you to come home right now. There's a situation."

* * *

Now that he truly knew what he was looking at, it was shocking Dean hadn't understood it before.

Jenny Meyer stood before him, looking small and fragile, her blond hair falling into her face as much as her messy pony tail would allow, and her haunted hazel eyes never met his, flicking from the floor to the wall to Lisa and back, but never rising high enough to catch Dean's gaze.

The other kids had gone home early. Dean making the calls the moment Lisa stepped through the door. All that was left was Ben, Errol, who might as well just be living with them he was never at his own house anyway, and Thomas, who was sitting up in Ben's room with the other two boys playing video games.

Once the last of the other kids had gone home, Dean had finally called Jenny.

Now she stood in front of him looking for all the world like a skittish, frightened, _beaten_ rabbit. Once he'd known what he was looking at it was easy for Dean to see the whole picture. It made him a little bit sick that he hadn't realized it sooner.

"Jenny-"

"I really don't know what this is all about." Jenny talked over him, her body almost vibrating with nervous energy, her small delicate hands tugging and worrying at the sleeves of her sweater. She stuttered, her eyes permanently fixed on the floor now. "I-I've always been terribly clumsy. Bumping to doors and things. I swear I would probably walk off a cliff if I wasn't looking at my feet."

The nervous laugh she forced out grated on Dean's last nerve.

"You're not clumsy, Jenny." He interrupted her babbling, lest he be forced to whip out his gun and shoot something just to blow off a little steam. "You've got a dancer's grace. You glide with every step and your legs are muscled and powerful enough to have carried you across a dance floor for most of your life."

Jenny was silent then. Her anxious jittering, her nervous fingers, her darting eyes all stock still. If her posture and bearing made her look any smaller she could be mistaken for a Who from Whoville.

"Howard is a good husband." She said, her tone too steady and very rehearsed. "He loves me. I don't appreciate what you're implying. I'm just clumsy."

Dean gritted his teeth. "You're not clumsy, Jenny." He repeated and took a slow deliberate step toward her. She jumped, but didn't move away. Dean ducked his head and finally caught her gaze in his. She didn't look away, nary a breath leaving her she was so very still as Dean slowly reached toward her and gently grasped her left hand in his. Lifting it he slid her stretched and fraying sweater sleeve up her arm revealing dark finger shaped bruises ringing her wrist like some kind of macabre body art.

"You're not clumsy." He said again. "You don't deserve this, no matter what your asshole husband says. You don't deserve to live in fear like this, to have to hide bruises behind sunglasses and long sleeved shirts." He paused and took a deep steadying breath. "You don't deserve this abuse and neither does Thomas."

For a fleeting second there was confusion marring Jenny's pretty, haunted eyes before a stark, comprehending horror filled them so fast it almost made Dean dizzy.

"No." She whispered like she was trying to convince herself. "No, Howard wouldn't. He wouldn't. He loves Thomas!"

Dean had enough and he just threw caution to the wind. He was so angry he had trouble reigning himself in enough not to scare Jenny. "If Howard loves his son so much then why was Thomas' back covered in bruises, some so fresh and deep I was afraid he'd injured his spine? If Howard wouldn't hurt you then why do you both cower in fear every time a grown man comes within five feet of you?"

"I didn't know!" She burst out ripping her arm away from Dean's hold looking so anguished and distraught she was near hysteria. "I didn't know! I should have known! I would have left!" She cried and started to collapse to her knees. Dean caught her and sank down to the floor with her.

"I was protecting Thomas. He said he wouldn't touch him if I let him… He said he wouldn't!" She sobbed suddenly into Dean's chest clutching at him just has fierce and hard as her son had not two hours before. "I thought I was protecting him."

Dean sighed and wrapped his arms around her lightly and rubbed at her heaving back soothingly. "I know." He murmured into her hair. "I know you tried to protect him, Jenny. Now, let me protect you both."

* * *

Dean stood in front of Jenny's front door and stared at the wood like he could make it burst into flames just with the angry power of his mind. The house, even from the outside, screamed control freak with an unhealthy dose of OCD. It was neat; perfect lawn, perfect shrubs, perfect clean brick façade, perfect summer wreath hanging from the door.

It didn't look anything like somewhere Jenny would be comfortable living. Her sweet disposition, sunny outfits (long-sleeved though they were), and handmade jewelry seemed more suited to a riotous wild flower garden and gay-ass, whimsical yard ornaments.

Even the door bell sounded like it had a stick shoved up its ass.

Dean had left Jenny and Thomas back at home with Lisa where she could keep an eye on them both. When he'd walked out the door Thomas had been safely ensconced in his mom's arms, hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows cooling on the coffee table in front of them.

Dean had told them he was going to stop by their house and pick them up some things while he had a talk with Howard. Lisa saw him shove his gun in the back of his pants, but she didn't say a thing. She just watched him walk out the door with a look in her eyes that said she had better not get a call to bail him out of jail later or there would be hell to pay.

He'd sent her back a look that simply said, don't worry. ("The cops won't be called if there's no body," didn't quite translate into silent eye communication.)

The door was opening and Dean got his first look at the asshole that thought it was okay to beat up on women and children.

Howard Meyer looked like the consummate white collar, upper middle management douchebag; crisp dress shirt, loosened silk tie, absent polite smile curving at his middle aged face, gray hair at his temples and wrinkles around his eyes. His watch looked like it cost enough money to buy Dean's car twice over.

Howard barely got a questioning greeting out before Dean plowed his fist into the smug fucker's mouth.

"Hello, Howard." Dean said as his knuckles smarted and he grinned down at Howard's stunned, bleeding face looking up at him from the floor. "I think it's time we had a talk."

"Who the fuck are you?" Howard demanded as he started crawling back from the door and trying to wrestle his cell from the holster on his belt. "Got out of my house or I'm calling the cops!"

Dean took one large step over the threshold, slammed the door shut then strolled forward and stomped one heavy, steel toed boot down on Howard's hand and applied pressure. "I don't think so, Howard." He said and felt a massive well of satisfaction at the sound of finger bones and plastic cellphone parts being crushed under his foot.

"You see," he continued over the sound of Howard's pained yells, "I have a bit of a bone to pick with you."

"Whatever you want!" Howard gasped out. "Just take it. The safe in my office is open. Just take it all!"

Dean tilted his head like he was thinking about it. Then he lifted his boot off Howard's ruined hand and crouched down next to him. "Well, now that's interesting, but you see, I'm not here to rob you."

Howard cradled his hand to his chest and looked up at Dean in disbelief. "What-"

"I'm not here to rob you. I'm here to talk." Dean said reaching out and grasping Howard by his tie and yanking him up closer to his face. "About Jenny and Thomas."

There is was; that look of comprehension and anger. Howard's face contorted with it.

"You're that babysitter." Howard hissed, expression twisted like he smelled something bad. Which considering he was hanging from his tie and his right hand was broken in at least four places was a feet of bravado and arrogance indeed. Howard sneered. "It's none of your fucking business what I do to control my family. Did Jenny put you up to this? I knew that ungrateful little slut was spreading it for you."

Dean didn't even dignify that with a response. He just slammed Howard's head into his cold slate tile floor then hauled him to his feet and slammed him up against a wall. The bastard's feet dangled six inches off the floor.

"You know what I used to do to guys that hit women and little kids, Howard?" Dean asked, letting a little bit of hell escape from its box in his mind and burn in his eyes. "I used to cut off their fingers and hands. I would start on their first pinky knuckle and work my way up to the wrist, piece by piece. When they had nothing but bleeding stubs I gutted them from cock to crown."

He shivered as if in pleasure forcefully pushing down the bile rising in his throat and made a show of looking regretfully at Howard. "Too bad I'm reformed now."

Howard made a little whining sound that could have been abject horror and could have been pants wetting fear. Dean chose to ignore it.

"But I will tell you what I am going to do to you. I'm going to let you live. I'm going to have fun beating the shit out of you, but then I'm going to leave and you are going to do three things." Dean told him waiting for Howard to nod his understanding.

"First; when Jenny files for divorce you are going to sign those papers no questions asked, you will give her everything she wants and you will not say one single solitary thing about it. Second; you will sign away all your rights to Thomas, you won't request joint custody, you won't request visitation, you won't even be the asshole that sends him a birthday card once a year. And third; you will have until tomorrow morning to pack your shit and get the fuck out of this house. You won't ever see Jenny or Thomas again or I will hunt you down and I won't even bother chopping off your hands first, I'll just kill you."

There was a breathless moment of dead silence. Dean wasn't even sure Howard was still breathing and his eyes were the size of saucers. "Do I make myself clear, Howard?"

He got a jerky nod and Dean, satisfied that he'd gotten his point across, cocked his fist back and broke the asshole's nose.

* * *

Dean washed the blood off his hands with a stale bottle of water from the backseat of the car and exchanged his blood speckled shirt with a spare he found in the trunk that smelled faintly like engine grease and old fries.

He'd cleaned out all the cash from Howard's wallet and his little floor safe in his office. Then he'd packed essentials for both Jenny and Thomas; enough clothes for a week, toiletries, and anything else Dean thought they'd want with them. Namely Jenny's jewelry and Thomas's stuffed killer whale he'd specifically asked Dean to retrieve.

On his way out the door with Thomas's Sponge Bob suit case and Jenny's floral travel tote bag his shoulders Dean paused by Howard's quivering, bloodied form and knelt down.

On Howard's right hand there was a solid gold diamond pinky ring with big, sharp prongs.

"I'm taking the ring." Dean told the barely conscious man as he knelt down and wrenched the ring from Howard's finger not even making an effort to appear gentle. He smirked as he twisted the pinky just so and heard the crack of a finger bone breaking. "Call it the first installment of your reparations to your wife and son."

Howard screamed in pain and didn't even bother trying not to cry.

When Dean walked back into Lisa's house carrying Jenny and Thomas' things with fifteen hundred dollars cash from the pawned ring in his hand he was met with a tight, tearfully thankful embrace from Jenny and a quivering, desperately clutching hug from Thomas.

Barely even looking at the envelope of cash he handed her, Jenny just stroked shaking hands down Dean's arms and chest while she looked his face over for any sign of injury. She'd been worried about him Dean realized when she didn't stop touching him until she was absolutely sure he was unharmed. She'd been worried that her pansy assed, douche bag husband would hurt him.

The thought that her husband had her so afraid of him that she thought he could have possibly been a match for Dean just made his heart ache a little bit more.

As he sat down with Jenny at the kitchen table to discuss her next step in getting away from the bastard for good, Dean thought that the nightmares he would have after pulling hell so close to surface would be completely worth it. He won't be getting much sleep for the next few days, but right now Jenny looked like a world's weight of sorrow and hopelessness had been lifted from her shoulders and a new fire had been lit behind her haunted eyes.

Yeah, the nightmares are so worth it.

* * *

End.


	3. Castration for Dummies

**Title**: Dean's Adventures in Babysitting: Castration for Dummies  
**Rating**: PG- PG13  
**Word Count**: 4,907  
**Warning**: kids(lots of kids), abundant OCs, BAMF!Dean, parental!Dean, child predator, allusion to child molestation, violence  
**Summary**: You don't touch one of Dean's kids. Not if you want to walk away with your dignity and all your protruding appendages still intact.

**A/N**: Timestamp to Dean's Adventures in Babysitting. Some content may trigger so be advised.

* * *

Self defense day at the park. Dean Winchester, what on earth were you thinking? Or at least that's what Dean asked himself about the fifth time he almost got kicked, kneed, or punched in the balls while trying to teach a rowdy group of preadolescents the basics of self defense.

He couldn't possibly have been this uncoordinated when his dad had taught him these very same moves at this age. Dean was almost completely baffled until he remembered when John tried to teach Sam the same moves. Ten minutes into the lesson John had turned Sam's instruction over to Dean after spending five minutes rolling around on the ground with his hands covering his nuts because of a well, though accidently, placed kick from Sam's clumsy flailing legs.

Dean smirked with the memory as he adjusted Clark's stance for the sixth time. That had been a _memorable_ afternoon.

"Okay, kids. Now remember, if someone tries to grab you, the first thing you should always do is…"

"Scream like hell and run away!" Came the chorus from eight excited, sugar hyped kids.

Maybe he shouldn't have let them all have ice-cream before going to the park.

Dean shook his head and focused back on the expectant faces in front of him. "That's right," he praised. "But sometimes you can't just scream and run away. What do you do if the bad guy grabs you and won't let go?"

"Kick him in the nuts?" Melanie piped up from the front row looking completely adorable and girly in her pink sundress and blond braids.

Stunned for a moment hearing the word nuts come out of such a tiny innocent looking little girl, Dean had to suppress his urge to burst out laughing and pinch the kid's cheeks.

"Yes," Dean drawled trying to keep a straight face while the kids giggled, "That would certainly be affective, but it's not always an option." He continued determined to at least teach these kids to throw a punch without breaking their own thumbs.

An hour later Dean had the makings of a truly beautiful black eye, a pair of severely unhappy balls and a new respect for the elasticity of preadolescent limbs and the sharpness of little kid elbows and knees.

All in all the afternoon wasn't a total bust and Dean felt he and kids had earned a little break from all the hard work.

Okay, Dean wasn't just the tiniest bit ashamed to admit he was the one that needed the break. Who would have thought that teaching eight completely inexhaustible, excitable kids self defense was more treacherous than hunting a wendigo? He was sporting more sore spots and bone deep bruises than he'd had in a long time.

And it felt fucking amazing.

"Alright kids. Here are the balls. Go play and try to keep from breaking anything or bleeding out for the next hour or so." Dean ordered as he dropped the bag of various sports related paraphernalia that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in Lisa's garage.

The kids fell on the equipment like a plague of locusts and Dean collapsed on the bench off to one side to watch over them from afar. The way those kids were screaming and running around already only a suicidal idiot would try and get in the middle of whatever game they were devising.

It was another thirty minutes of nursing his abused spots and his wounded pride at having been out lasted by elementary school kids while making sure the kids didn't kill themselves before he actually noticed the guy.

There wasn't anything really strange about him. He looked like a normal guy just out to enjoy the summer sunlight and the warm summer air. He sat on a bench on the other side of the field, had a newspaper open in front of him, a pair of conservative sunglasses for the sun, and he was wearing khakis and a dark colored polo shirt. His hair was clean cut and combed to the side. His shoes were sensible and comfortable.

There really was nothing strange about him. Really, nothing at all. No one else would have thought anything about him. They would have nodded to him as they passed him on their circuit around the path in the park. They would have let their eyes skate right over him without a second glance. They would have ignored him.

He was completely normal.

Except his paper was a week old, he hadn't turned a page in the last twenty minutes, and his face was tilted unwaveringly toward the nine children all running around in front of him.

The hair on the back of Dean's neck went up and the skin on his arms prickled in that way that usually meant a ghost was about to materialize out of nowhere and throw someone into a wall. Muscles tensing, Dean moved to his feet fast and smooth.

"Okay, kids!" He yelled over the din of screaming and laughing. "Let's pack up. It's almost home time." It wasn't. They still had another three hours before the parents were due to pick up their kids at Lisa's.

"But it's still early!" Ben whined from the opposite side of the field where he, Errol, and Clark had been kicking a ball back and forth. "We've got like three more hours." He shook his brand-new watch in the air to emphasize that he knew what he was talking about.

Dean silently cursed himself for having the brilliant idea of getting it for the kid's birthday. He didn't exactly have the time or the patience right now to negotiate with a pack of kids. He just wanted them all lined up and walking back to Lisa's, and far, far away from creepy newspaper guy within the next five minutes.

"I said it's time to go, Ben." He repeated, voice deadly serious, the sound of it causing a ripple of surprise and unease to travel through the kids. "Collect the balls and line up over here, now."

With that command the kids suddenly jerked into motion and Dean was cursing again as he struggled to keep track of all the kids. Cary and Hugh had the ball bag held between them and all the kids were tossing the various sports and game paraphernalia inside it. Dean was counting heads every two seconds to make sure he had one eye on all the kids and one eye on the guy across the field.

He should have known this afternoon had been going too smoothly.

Thomas tripped over his perpetually trailing shoelaces and Dean stooped to help him to his feet. In that split second he lost visuals on Sydney as she sprinted across the field to collect a runaway Frisbee.

The back of Dean's neck prickled almost painfully and he jerked his head up just in time to see newspaper guy snag Sydney around the waist and try to make a run for it.

"Ben! Watch the kids!" Dean barked, shocking all the kids into a stand still as he shot back to his feet and took off.

Newspaper guy had an entire field and five running jogs for a head start, but Dean had a fierce burning rage searing in his belly and the protective instincts of a mama bear on zilla-roids. Plus Sydney wasn't exactly making the guy's abduction attempt easy on him.

She was screaming bloody murder drawing the attention of nearly everyone within the park's half mile radius all the while twisting and squirming and fighting anyway she could.

If Dean wasn't so focused on ripping the bastard apart limb from limb he would have taken the time to be proud of her.

Dean was three feet from the creepy fucker when the guy lost his grip on Sydney and her feet hit the ground with a solid thump. She struggled to get away, tried to twist and kick at him, but he had a hard bruising grip on her arm and didn't seem to want to let go.

Gritting his teeth, Dean felt the handle of the knife he kept strapped to his leg inside his boot hard and heavy in his hand like it was a part of him. He made it to the guy, wrapped an unforgiving arm around the guy's throat jerking him back against his chest and growled like a fucking hellhound.

"Get your hands _off_ my kid!"

Newspaper guy froze and Sydney suddenly dissolved into scared, nearly uncontrollable sobs.

"Hey, man. This isn't what it looks like." Newspaper guy started in that reasonable, harmless tone of voice. Like if he just explained it would make up for the fact that he'd _touched_ one of Dean's kids. Put hands on them with intent and purpose.

"It looks like you're trying to kidnap my kid." Dean said, his tone cold and hard and terrifying, the tip of his bowie knife held steady and unwavering under the guy's chin, his bicep flexing tight around the guy's throat. "Let go of her, now, or I will make you." He warned, meaning the threat down to his bones.

This time the guy just smirked uneasily. Dean could just see the curl of his lips even with the guy still facing away from him.

"Come on, man. You've got eight of them. I just wanted this one. Besides," he chuckled nervously, sweat starting to break out on his brow, "What are you going to do if I don't?"

The guy was stupid as well as sick. Dean's lip lifted up in a silent snarl and he pressed the razor sharp edge of his twelve inch bowie knife tighter to the tender, delicate skin underneath the guy's jaw.

"I will slit your throat from ear to ear right here in front of God and everyone and I will smile while your blood pours out onto the ground."

There was a moment of absolute and total stillness as the guy finally registered that the press of cool steel against his skin wasn't a bluff. The fingers he had wrapped bruisingly tight around Sydney's arm spasmed once then loosened and let go completely.

The girl hurriedly stumbled away from the creep and almost fell to her knees in her haste to get behind Dean. She latched onto the back of Dean's shirt with shaking hands and buried her face into the small of his back her entire body quivering like a leaf on the breeze.

Removing his arm from around the guy's throat knowing that with the bowie knife under his chin he wouldn't be going anywhere, Dean reached back and cradled the back of Sydney's head with his hand pressing it closer to him for a steadying moment before he eased his hold and awkwardly stroked her hair.

"Sydney," He said, tone steady and calm demanding her attention, his entire body still poised and focused on the sick fuck frozen on his knife's edge. "Go back to the kids and stay there."

"Dean…" Her breath hitched and she started to shake her head.

"Now, Sydney." He cut her off before she could beg to stay with him. Her voice was watery and terrified, just the sound of his name coming from her at that moment almost made him drop everything and pull her into his arms. But he had something he needed to take care of first.

"Turn around, Sydney. Find Errol with your eyes." Dean felt her jerkily uncurl her death grip from his shirt and turn slowly around, her back still pressed against him as much as possible. Dean squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. "Good girl. Now, walk to him. Don't stop walking until you can touch him and stay with him until I get there."

Sydney made a heart wrenching, sobbing sound and Dean just squeezed her shoulder again before gently pushing her away from him. "Go, now, Sydney."

Another sob escaped from her as she suddenly took off running toward her friends. Dean stayed completely still until he heard her footsteps stop and the sound of children all talking at once reached his ears.

"Are you going to let me go now?" The guy asked sounding as if that was a completely reasonable conclusion to his fubar kidnapping attempt.

Dean turned the entirety of his attention back to his captive and the seething rage in his gut burned hot and choking.

"No." Dean said, feeling malicious and so very angry. "I'm going to make you wish you had never laid an eye on a little girl, a little kid in your life."

"What?" The guy gasped out, nearly laughing with his stunned incredulity.

Dean tightened the knife's position and the blade nicked the skin underneath the guy's jaw. A thick line of blood trickled down his neck and the guy hissed in surprise, his body stiffening in self preservation.

"I'm going to make you wish you had never even gone through puberty, because you really shouldn't have touched one of my kids. You really fucking shouldn't have."

The guy opened his mouth as if to protest or question, but he never got the chance.

Lighting fast, Dean slid his knife away from the guy's throat and up between his legs. A swift flick of the wrist, a quick jerk and pull and the guy was rolling around on the ground screaming bloody murder his hands cupping the quickly spreading patch of dark red at his crotch.

Dean flicked his wrist again sending the excess blood on his blade spraying the grass as he watched the writhing mass of sorry excuse for a human being at his feet dispassionately.

"You won't bleed out." He informed the sobbing man calmly. "Hell, you might not even lose your balls, but I want you to remember this the next time you even think about a child. I want you to remember the feeling of my blade slicing you open, the sound of my voice, the look on my face."

The guy's eyes were big as saucers now, but Dean wasn't finished yet. He'd heard the footsteps as an older man stepped up from the side within his visual range, but Dean didn't acknowledge him just yet.

Dean lifted his booted foot, stepped on the guy's shoulder and applied pressure until he was uncurled enough to look up at Dean's face. "I want you to remember this and know that I'll be watching you from now on. If you make it out of jail, remember that if you even look at a child the wrong way I'll be there to finish the job I started."

He tapped his bloody knife on the guy's bleeding crotch painfully for emphasis before spiriting it away and turning around to finally address the older man standing behind him.

The man had been taking a leisurely afternoon stroll with his wife when the trouble had gone down and now he was watching Dean with a calm, unreadable expression his cell phone still open in his hand.

Dean raised an eyebrow at him promptingly.

"The police have been called." The man said. "They've been informed of an attempted abduction and subsequent apprehension of the perpetrator. They should be here soon."

He spoke like a man of authority. Maybe retired military. Probably an ex-cop. Dean didn't particularly care. He just nodded. "I appreciate it. Thank you."

The old man nodded then looked around Dean at the bleeding child abductor on the ground. "You didn't kill him, did you?"

Snorting contemptuously, Dean shrugged carelessly. "Didn't hit nothing vital." He smirked maliciously. "Or, at least, nothing he can't live without. You mind keeping an eye on him until five-oh gets here? I've got eight freaked out kids I need to see to."

The older man's mouth curled almost companionably before he nodded his ascent. "No problem. Go do what you need to do."

* * *

The flashing red and blue lights were distracting and casting a seizure like quality to the already chaotic surroundings. Dean was sitting on a park bench with a shaking, crying, clinging Sydney wrapped around him like a koala bear. Clark hadn't moved more than two feet away from his sister since Dean had picked her up, running his hands over her in an automatic search for injuries.

Thomas, Melanie, Cary and Hugh had already been picked up by their frantic, freaked out parents. Now, those had been some interesting phone conversations. Dean had spent two of those conversations reassuring terrified mothers and fathers, one of those being cried at, and one being lectured and screamed at in turn, but eventually everyone had calmed down enough to do what needed to be done and come get their kids from the park.

The cops hadn't let Dean and Sydney out of their immediate vicinity. Dean was starting to get twitchy being surrounded by enough cops to make his natural aversion to law enforcement and his psych ward worthy phobia of prison start acting up. But he held it together even while trying to keep track of a gaggle of frightened kids, three of which wouldn't step more than an arm's length away from him.

"Ben, would you, Errol, and Clark go and sit down at the other end of the bench for me." Dean ordered more than asked, his patience with the entire ordeal wearing thin. Ben looked like he wanted to protest, but Dean cut him off. "I wasn't asking, Ben."

The three boys quietly, reluctantly scooted the three feet down the bench and sat tense and curled in on themselves.

Dean spared a moment to feel bad about that, but he didn't think Sydney would appreciate them being right on top of her while the pretty EMT lady asked all kinds of awkward embarrassing questions.

"Hi, Sydney. I'm Corrina." The dark skinned EMT introduced herself as she knelt down ending up a little bit bellow eyelevel with Sydney who was still perched on Dean's lap. "I'm going to check you over to make sure you're not hurt anywhere. Tell me if you feel any pain, okay?"

Sydney didn't seem to want to even pull her face away from where it had taken up permanent residence pressed uncomfortably hard against Dean's shoulder. He shook that shoulder cajolingly and murmured, "Come on, Sydney darling. Miss Corrina needs you to look at her so she can help you."

The little girl reluctantly untangled herself from Dean enough that the EMT could do a cursory examination.

"That's my brave girl." Dean murmured into Sydney's hair while he rubbed a hand in soothing circles on her back and watched the EMT with sharp warning eyes.

Corrina flashed a light in Sydney's eyes, checked her temperature, and gently felt around for any broken ribs or bones all the while asking her easy yes or no questions about how the little girl felt. Her dark eyes flashed at the sight of the rapidly reddening hand shaped bruise on Sydney's arm, but she just noted it on her clipboard and moved on.

"Well, for right now you seem perfectly healthy." Corrina announced a few moments later smiling warmly at Sydney. Standing up, she turned her professional gaze on Dean, "We're going to wait for Sydney's mother before we do a more thorough examination."

Dean nodded and adjusted Sydney to his left leg when she hurriedly curled herself into him again. His right leg had long since fallen asleep.

"I think that's a good idea. I don't want anyone asking her any hard questions until her parents get here."

Corrina stepped away and Dean was left to fend off three more attempts from cops to get statements from Sydney before the screeching of breaks and the calling of Sydney and Clark's names caught everyone's attention.

"Sydney!" Madison Strait screamed frantically as she launched herself out of her husband's still moving vehicle. "Clark!"

Stiffening a split second before she hurriedly untangled herself from Dean, Sydney scrambled off his lap and ran toward her mom, fresh tears pouring down her cheeks. Madison caught her daughter and swept her up in a crushing embrace, her hands moving frantically over her child and her face buried in Sydney's wind swept, tangled hair.

Don Strait stayed in the car long enough to make sure it was put in park and wouldn't roll away anytime soon before he too was out of the car and racing toward the rest of his family. Clark couldn't contain himself anymore and met him halfway.

Dean watched the scene for a few minutes before he bit the bullet and stood up. On his way passed he stroked reassuring hands over Ben and Errol's heads as he walked toward the Straits.

Madison saw him coming first. Dean stopped a few steps away and shifted guiltily, one hand rubbing nervously at his neck. "Madison, I am so sorry-"

"Not one more word, Dean Campbell, or I really will have to hit you." She warned, stunning Dean into silence before she reached out a hand and grabbed him by the front of his snot covered, tear stained t-shirt and pulled him to her.

Frozen in surprise, Dean glanced over at Don only to find such a look of gratefulness on the man's face as he cradled Clark against his chest that Dean had to look away. Madison suddenly shuddered in a sob against him and Dean awkwardly brought a hand up to pat at her back soothingly.

"It's alright, Maddie." He murmured as she clenched a fist against his back, Sydney still squished between them and not seeming to mind. "Sydney's alright. She's going to be alright. I wouldn't have let that bastard hurt her."

The woman choked back a sob and pulled away, releasing Dean from the embrace as she wiped futilely at her wet cheeks. She smiled waveringly at him before she leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.

"Thank you, Dean. There aren't words for how thankful we are." Madison said, her entire being just positively radiating the sentiment.

Mouth open to protest, Dean was silenced when Don reached over and clapped a hard, heavy hand on his shoulder, giving it an almost painful squeeze. "Dean, she's our daughter." Don said like that explained the nearly overwhelming weight of their terror and gratefulness that they were heaping on Dean's shoulders.

Dean looked back at the little girl clinging desperately to her mother, face buried in her neck, one eye peaking out just enough to look at Dean like he was a freaking superhero. He blew out a breath and rubbed a hand through his hair. Yeah, okay. So he got it.

The Straits were beset upon by detectives and EMTs once more and Dean sat with Ben and Errol, one boy on each side and his arms around their shoulders. Lisa was out of town visiting her sister and Errol's mother was out of the country. They were stuck with Dean for as long as he was stuck by the cops.

"Excuse me, Mr. Campbell?" A detective maybe a decade older than Dean captured his attention when he stepped up to their bench. "I'm Detective Hart. Can I ask you a few questions about what happened today?"

It wasn't a question and Dean wasn't too keen on seeing how far he could push a cop's patience so he nodded stiffly and stood up. Telling Ben and Errol to stay on the bench Dean gestured for the detective to take a few steps away with him.

They stood ten feet away, well within hearing distance if one of the boys needed Dean.

"Can we make this quick, Detective?" Dean asked, just the barest hint of annoyance in his voice. "I would like to take the boys home sometime soon."

Detective Hart nodded understandingly and Dean got the impression the guy had kids of his own. "This shouldn't take long. Just a few follow up questions."

"Shoot."

"There's been some discrepancy in the witness statements as to what happened when you stopped Mr. Bates from taking Sydney. Could you clarify on how exactly Mr. Bates received a partially severed scrotum?"

Wow. Creepy child abductor was named _Bates_. Just wow. Irony much?

Dean shrugged, and flashed the detective a rather poor imitation of one of Sammy's most innocent, concerned citizen looks. "It must have happened in the scuffle."

"Scuffle?" Hart repeated dubiously, obviously not buying Dean's look for one moment.

"Yeah, after he let go of Sydney he tried to run. I stopped him. There was a scuffle." Dean clarified with an indolent flip of his hand.

His explanation seemed to impress the detective none at all. "Mr. Campbell, three of the witnesses interviewed claimed that you pulled a very large knife on Mr. Bates and proceeded to threaten him before stabbing him in the groin."

Dean just raised an eyebrow at that, not particularly worried about being arrested. Bates had been seen by all five of the witnesses attempting to abduct a child and not a jury in the country would convict Dean of assault after being told that.

"What did the other two witnesses say?" He asked, pretty sure he already knew.

Hart almost scowled. "They were uncompromisingly vague on the details after you apprehended Bates."

He couldn't help it. Dean felt a grin start to curve smugly at his lips. It seemed the old probably-ex-cop and his wife approved of his methods.

Abruptly, Hart's expression froze and the detective took a mental step back and looked at Dean again from a more detached perspective. His keen eyes searched Dean's face, his expression, his body language as if looking for something he just realized should have been right out in the open.

A wary tenseness swept over Dean and he unconsciously adjusted his body as if expecting an attack, his expression shifting to blank and watchful.

Unfortunately, that shift seemed to be what tipped the detective's mental scales from suspicion to surety.

Adjusting his own stance, Hart nonchalantly dropped his right hand to hang limply at his hip were his gun rested heavy and reassuring in its holster. He knew the movement hadn't escaped Dean's notice, but didn't move his hand away.

"You know," Hart started casually, though there was nothing casual about either man at the moment, "you hold a striking resemblance to a man named Winchester."

"Is that so?" Dean shifted his stance minutely putting his weight on the balls of his feet, his hands at his sides, loose and ready.

"Yeah," Hart said, voice pitched low so only they were privy to the conversation. "But Winchester is supposed to have died three years back."

"I just have one of those faces." His voice was flat and cold. Dean watched the detective, just waiting.

Hart tilted his head and watched Dean with shrewd eyes. "The thing is," He continued, not wanting to let it go, "Winchester was smart and dangerous. He'd been declared dead once before, and yet he came back to be declared a second time."

There was silence for a long moment. Dean watched the detective as the detective watched him; watched as the detective came to the correct and dangerous conclusion.

"Dean Winchester has been dead a long time." Dean finally said, breaking the silence. "I'm just Dean Campbell. I'm not the man you're looking for."

Detective Hart studied Campbell's face, the utterly emotionless expression on the man's face as he waited for him to say something. He looked at the snot and tear stained t-shirt the man was wearing. He thought about the lethal precision of the cut on Bates, the utter uncontrollable terror on the man's face when asked for his statement. He thought about the sight of the man before him cradling a frightened little girl to his chest even as he continuously counted the other children gathered around him like ribbons on a maypole seemingly unable to keep his eyes off them lest one of them be snatched up again. He thought about the fierce, almost frightening look in the man's eyes anytime anyone, police officer, EMT, or concerned citizen came near his charges before they were all retrieved by their parents.

Detective Hart looked into Dean Campbell's shadowed, familiar green eyes and said, "No, I suppose you're not. Thank you, Mr. Campbell. If there are anymore questions the department will contact you."

For a moment, by the suspicious, surprised look on Campbell's face, Hart thought he was going to say something, but he just nodded stiffly, bid him a good day and turned back toward the two boys watching them with open trepidation on their young faces.

As Hart watched Campbell rub gentle practiced hands over the boys' heads, one of the boys looked up at him then back at Hart with wary suspicion in his eyes.

"Dean?" He sounded worried and all too knowing.

Campbell just smiled tiredly, reassuringly down at the boy. "It's alright, Ben. It's time to go home."

The kid deflated in relief and jumped down from the bench fitting himself up against Campbell's side like a puzzle piece. The other boy did much the same, both of their young faces showing the strain of the day as Campbell expertly walked the three of them out of the park and down the street toward home.

Hart watched them until he couldn't see them anymore and thought it's a pity he's going to have to spill coffee on Campbell's contact information, his chief really hates it when shit like that happens.

* * *

END.


	4. Napalm in the Morning

**Title**: Dean's Adventures in Babysitting: Napalm in the Morning

**Word Count**: 5,416  
**Warning**: kids(lots of kids), abundant OCs, BAMF!Dean, parental!Dean, parental hovering, kids & Dean thinking they're sneaky, language  
**Summary**: Between the combed hair, the summer homework, and the overbearing mother the kid was miserable. Dean is determined to fix that.

* * *

It was six forty-five in the morning. The sun had just barely started rising in the sky like it needed coffee just to try and make the effort. It was about two hours too early for the doorbell to start ringing. Dean was groggy and stiff and still fighting with the last dregs of another screaming night terror.

The yoga breathing Lisa had started forcing on him when he started to wake up half the neighborhood with his screaming only did so much to calm him down. As it was, his lungs still felt shredded and his hands still felt sticky with blood. Dean barely got enough shut eye to walk in a straight line much less answer the door at ass-crack o'clock in the morning.

Still, it was one of his kid days, as he called them, and the doorbell only rang this early for one of two reasons; there was a problem with one of his kids, or Jehovah's Witness was being freakishly persistent.

Stumbling from his overheated and sweat dampened bed, Dean struggled into a pair of overly ripe jeans and yanked on a shirt that was stiff from either motor oil or vomit. These days it was a tossup to which one it could be.

He never thought he'd miss the days when his options for mysterious stains were just blood or monster guts.

On his way down the hall, Dean tripped on a mountain of Legos left over from the day before and brained himself on the creepy-ass grandfather clock Lisa was convinced was just charming and i_not/i_ in anyway possessed by the voyeuristic spirit of a dirty old man. Dean was convinced otherwise; the clock still gave him the willies despite having secretly done all the tests he could dredge up from his not inconsiderable repertoire on it. Disappointingly it came up clean.

Then again maybe the thing was just butt-fuck ugly.

By the time Dean finally made it to the front door, the bell had rung another three times and Dean was having serious issues feeling anything other than annoyed and cranky.

"For fuck's sake!" Dean cursed louder than he normally would when his mind was firing on all cylinders. "I'm right here! Quit it with the bell already!"

He yanked the door open expecting Laurie Grant, recently divorced Mom-On-The-Prowl, otherwise known as Cary and Hugh's mom, or Madison Strait, the Catty-But-Charming Clark and Sydney's mom. They were the only two moms of his group that were cheeky enough to make such a racket this early in the morning and risk his ire.

Dean was not, however, expecting to find Shelly St. James, Helicopter-Mom and Super-Bitch, shifting anxiously, impatiently on Lisa's welcome mat with her quiet introverted son Nathan standing next to her unhappily.

The snarky comment on his lips died and he was sure his mouth was hanging open unattractively. Shelly had made no secret about her disdain and distrust of his child caring skills. She'd even threatened to have him investigated until he'd gotten his daycare permit and still had categorically refused to even think about leaving her son in his obviously incapable and negligent hands.

To say Dean was debating checking the sky for flying pigs, or splashing her with holy water wasn't an understatement. He'd seen way stranger things; Shelly St. James standing on his porch being one of them.

"Mrs. St. James." Dean said when it looked like her distaste and discomfort wasn't going to permit her to start off the conversation. "Is there a reason you're ringing my doorbell at Ungodly o'clock in the morning?"

Okay so he wasn't as polite as he should be. He was sleep-deprived, coffee starved, and he was pretty sure he'd grabbed the vomit shirt and not the motor oil one like he'd been silently hoping.

Shelly scowled something fierce, but apparently decided to ignore his impertinence in favor of expediency. How magnanimous of her.

"Mr. Campbell, I know this is short notice and… unexpected-"

Dean kindly refrained from snorting. He had little control of his incredulous eyebrow expression however.

"But I have a family emergency, my husband is out of town on business, and our sitter has the stomach flu." She paused and opened her mouth like she was going to continue, but by the grimace on her face and the wrinkle of her nose she was having some real trouble actually forcing the words out.

Dean was tempted to wait her out, but the kid, Nathan looked seriously miserable with sad and tired brown eyes. Dean had never been able to resist any kid's sad puppy expression. He blamed years of Sam steadily wearing down his defenses.

"You want me to take Nathan for the day." He finished for her and kindly did not sound smug about it.

Shelly sighed like she was being tortured and nodded. "Yes, Mr. Campbell. I would very much appreciate if you could watch Nathan for the day. Just until I get my… family emergency taken care of."

Dean wanted to ask why she seemed about to shake out of her skin with anxious worry every time she mentioned her "family emergency", but he didn't bother asking. It was none of his business and she wouldn't have told him. His protective instincts, his yearning need to just find any kind of threat, problem and eliminate it was not welcome or practical here.

"I would be glad to take Nathan." Dean said, figuring the sooner he got Shelly off his porch the sooner he could get out of his vomit encrusted shirt and take a shower before he started breakfast. "He'll be fine with the other kids."

Shelly nodded in grudgingly grateful acceptance then started giving instructions like a drill sergeant. "He has asthma so if he starts to have trouble breathing his inhaler is in his backpack. He's allergic to strawberries, wheatgrass, and pineapple, his epinephrine pen is in the middle pocket. His study books are in there as well, he should have math pages fifteen through twenty-four finished by eleven then history pages seven through thirteen, followed by English thirty through thirty-three.

"He's sensitive to the sun so no longer than fifteen minutes at a time in any kind of direct sunlight. No running, it triggers his asthma, no sugar, no candy, no sports drinks, and no rough play." She finished off and Dean was just a little bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of restrictions on this kid. Shelly wasn't finished just yet apparently. She unzipped her purse and pulled out a packet of bound and _laminated_ notecards and shoved them at Dean like it was mission brief.

"This is all of the contact information you need. His pediatrician, our pharmacy, my office, my husband's office, both our cells, and the hospital I'll be at today and any and all instructions for his inhaler and epi-pen should he need them." She flipped through each entry in the packet consecutively like Dean wouldn't have been able to find it on his own. Then she paused and waited to see if he had any questions.

When all Dean seemed able to do was stand there with a stupid look on his face she seemed suddenly ten times less sure about leaving her apparently snowflake fragile kid with the mouth-gaping, vomit smelling Neanderthal in front of her.

Shaking himself, Dean tucked the packet in his back pocket and tried to get his brain to process the information dump he'd just undergone. "I got it," was all his sluggish brain seemed to be able to spit out just then.

Shelly looked completely unenthused about leaving Nathan in his bumbling care, but she didn't have much of a choice so she just steeled her resolved and turned to crouched down in front of her son grasping him by the shoulders in a gentle steadying hold.

"Alright Nathan. I'm going to leave now. Do you have your inhaler?"

The kid huffed and ducked his head as if embarrassed. "Yes, Mom."

"Do you have your epinephrine pack?"

Nathan looked up then and Dean was mildly amused to see the kid's cheeks were bright red with embarrassment. "Yes, Mom. You checked before we left the house. Remember?"

His mom just sighed and nodded then leaned forward and kissed the kid on the forehead before standing again and leveling a glare at Dean. He would have taken more offense to the expression if he hadn't been watching Nathan's face fairly catch on fire with the force of his blush. The kid's face was once again tuned down to the floor and Dean felt for him.

Parents could be so embarrassing sometimes.

Before Shelly could open her mouth and spew even more instructions, Dean cut her off. "Mrs. St. James, I have your information, Nathan has his stuff, you have an emergence and I have a breakfast to start preparing."

She huffed then with one last warning glance at Dean and a stroking hand over Nathan's head she was in her car and reluctantly pulling away from the curb.

Dean waved somewhat mockingly from the front porch before turning his attention to the nine year-old boy in front of him.

Nathan was dressed like he was auditioning for yacht club poster boy, polo shirt neatly pressed and tucked into his perfectly creased khaki trousers, his shoes were too dressy for any kid under the age of forty and his brown hair was combed to the side and held in place by a thin smear of hair gel. His blue backpack hanging off his shoulders looked almost new it was so clean despite having obvious creasing and softening from use.

In that moment Dean looked at this poor miserable kid with more instructions and restrictions than an ancient Sumerian summoning ritual and sighed. No kid should be that well taken care of and still look so fucking sad.

"Alright." He rubbed at his hair absently and stepped back from the door and ushered the kid inside. "Let's get you inside, okay, Nate?"

The kid looked up at Dean for the first time and wrinkled his nose. "It's Nathan."

His heart clenched a little, but Dean couldn't stop himself smiling. Kid kinda reminded him of Sam just then. Maybe today wouldn't be so bad after all. "Sure thing, kid." He smirked and led the kid over to the living room.

Nathan passed him on his way to the sofa and wrinkled his nose again. "You smell like throw up."

Yep, Dean thought wryly. Kid definitely reminded him of Sammy.

* * *

It was a much more reasonable hour and all of Dean's kids had shown up and eaten breakfast and were now overrunning the house in a not very controlled chaos. Dean allowed the in-door-out-door rampaging for about fifteen minutes before he put his foot down and shoved the lot of them out into the backyard to amuse themselves somewhere Lisa wouldn't have a conniption if they broke anything.

It almost took Dean twenty minutes of watching games of tag, trampoline, and a tea party that looked more like a NATO Parliamentary Assembly than a garden party to notice that one of his kids was missing. Looking around he finally spotted his missing charge on the other side of the sliding glass door seated at the kitchen table with a study book open in front of him and a mournful look on his face as he watched the other kids outside.

Sighing, Dean looked for Ben out in the yard and yelled for him to keep an eye out on the other kids before he stood up from his lounge chair and headed inside.

The kid had barely said a word the entire morning seeming to prefer to sit quietly and sink into the background when the other kids were around him. Dean hadn't been blind to the way the other kids watched Nathan surreptitiously like they didn't quite know how to interact with him either. It wasn't hard to draw the conclusion that Nathan wasn't much of a joiner in school and as a result probably didn't have many, or any, friends.

Of course having an overprotective, overachieving, over controlling helicopter-mom that ruled the PTA like a despot probably didn't help either. Dean had felt smothered and he'd barely spent ten minutes talking to her.

Dean hadn't been planning on holding the kid to the homework during the summer thing, but apparently Nathan was just the brand of lonely isolated, protectively bubbled kid to do it anyway even without having his mother breathing down his neck.

When he stepped back into the kitchen, Nathan looked up at him and watched Dean take a seat next to him at the table.

"So…" Dean started, nudging one of the kid's study books closer to get a better look at it. _Allied Movements in the South Pacific Theater during WWII_… "Wow that's some heavy learning, kid." Dean whistled, mildly impressed that an nine year-old could even comprehend reading like that much less be at all interested enough to even try.

Nathan just looked back down at the study book tugging it back to him. "My Great-Grandfather fought in World War II, my Grandfather was in the Marines in Vietnam, and my Uncle was stationed in Afghanistan for two tours."

Huh… So Helicopter-Mom was a military brat. Somehow that made perfect sense. She was just that kind of uptight to have been raised in a family of military officers.

"My dad was a Marine." Dean offered and just like that Nathan didn't look like he was waiting for Dean to lose interest in him at any moment. "Fought in Vietnam, too. Taught my little brother and me pretty much everything he knew."

Nathan bit his lip seeming nervous to press his luck with the attention of an adult nearly all of the neighborhood kids gushed about being "so totally cool".

"Where did you serve?" He asked hesitantly.

The question took Dean aback.

"It's just that you act like my grandfather and uncle sometimes." Nathan rushed to say, afraid he'd offended Dean. "You always flinch and look toward sudden or loud sounds, you watch for threats to the other kids like they could come at any time even though they're just in the backyard, and when you walk around the yard to watch the kids you're really just checking the perimeter."

Dean was a little bit stunned. To think that Nathan was either so observant or so used to being around veterans with no small amounts of PTSD, like Dean had, that he recognized the signs was just a little bit amazing. The kid was seriously smart.

"And," Nathan continued starting to fidget nervously at Dean's continued stunned silence, "Ben always makes more noise than normal when he's walking up behind you if he can't approach in your line of sight. Errol does it too, but I think he just does it cause Ben does it and the other kids sometimes do it if they see Ben doing it."

"Nate." Dean interrupted before the kid could babble himself into a nervous fit. "That's pretty impressive." He said and Nathan seemed more surprised by the praise than he'd been when Melanie had asked him if he wanted braid her hair after breakfast. "You got all that just from three hours of this crazy fest?" Dean asked gesturing around at the chaos that was the house filled with nearly a dozen kids under the age of twelve

Nathan blushed so deep Dean was sure the kid was going to burst into flames. "Yeah." He murmured shyly. "My uncle told me it's always good to be extra observant of your surroundings."

"Well, he's right." Dean nodded knowingly, still a little bit shocked by just how observant this kid was.

He looked at the kid again taking in his periodic glances at the play going on outside and the naked yearning in his brown eyes then looked at the kid's stack of work books. It was summer, Dean decided. No kid deserved to be stuck inside doing homework; freakishly overbearing mother or not.

Plus, the kid was just way too pale to be anything other than sunshine deprived.

"Nate, is there any specific reason why you're not allowed sun for more than fifteen minutes, or that you can't run around with the other kids?"

"No." The kid sighed like he'd resigned himself to being miserable in air conditioning. "Mom's just worried cause I almost died when I was a baby or something. My asthma isn't really that bad."

It was said with the nonchalance of a child that didn't quite understand the fear of parenthood already inured to the obsessive precautions that fear often birthed. Dean himself was getting a few flashbacks to the close calls and the inevitable fall of Sam. He understood Shelly a little better now that he knew she'd come by that fear honestly, but at the same time the kid was clearly miserable and Dean was already dead set on doing something about it.

"Well, then I don't see a reason why you can't just put off the homework for a little while and come outside and play with us. I'm thinking of starting up a game of water gun war in the yard in a few minutes." He smirked just thinking about the idea of it.

"But I'm not supposed to get my clothes dirty." Nathan protested mournfully.

"No problem, you can borrow a pair of Ben's swim shorts." Dean waved the kid's words away with a hand. "All the kids keep swimsuits here after the first impromptu water gun fight we had."

"But I have asthma." Nathan said like he was just searching for a reason he shouldn't have any kind of fun whatsoever.

"We'll keep your inhaler in your pocket. No big deal." Dean answered easily. This was going to be so much fun he just knew it.

Nathan's mouth opened and closed for a moment like he was trying to think of another protestation, but when he finally came up empty he looked hesitantly excited at the idea of joining the game with them all. "Okay." He finally said.

Dean grinned so big he knew he must look stupid. "Awesome."

* * *

Thirty minutes later, the kids were all slathered in sunscreen (Dean learned his lesson after the first time all the moms gave him stink eyes when he'd returned their kids looking like over boiled lobsters) and clothed in their swimsuits. Nathan was in Ben's suit from the summer before and since he was nearly two sizes smaller it fit alright. His inhaler was safely ensconced in the Velcro pocket on the leg in a zip-lock baggie for extra protection from the water.

Dean was in a pair of cut-offs that had to be sacrificed after he'd ripped the left leg almost entirely off while trying to clean out Lisa's gutters around her house. Nathan's eyes had been inquisitive and curious when he'd spotted Cas's handprint on Dean's shoulder along with his other various scars, and his tattoo, but he'd refrained from asking since all the other kids seemed unfazed by the sight of Dean without his shirt on.

Standing at the backyard water spigot filling up red and blue water balloons, Dean watched as the kids divided into two teams that inevitably split the kids by age.

Melanie, Clark, Cary, and Hugh were standing apart in one team while Ben, Errol, Thomas, and Sydney made up the other one. Nathan was standing off to one side looking more unsure of himself than he had standing on Dean's welcome mat that morning.

"You can be on our team, Nathan." Melanie spoke up and waved the awkward little boy over. "We're gonna beat them so you don't want to be on their team anyway."

Dean chuckled under his breath as he tied off the last balloon. Melanie never failed to impress him with the sheer amount of confidence and feistiness she had for a six year-old.

"Alright, kids!" Dean shouted as he whistled shrilly to get their, "Attention!"

The kids snapped to like trained cadets, Nathan being the only one slow to fall in rank seeing as he was new to the game. Dean just winked at him when he blushed.

"Okay! Three rules to the game. Rule number one!"

"Not in the eyes!" The kids shouted in unison losing their childishly exaggerated straight backed stances with their enthusiasm.

"Rule number two!"

"Don't cry wolf!" They called just starting to vibrate with eagerness to get to it already.

Dean had added rule two after he'd nearly had a heart attack when Melanie tried to stage a fake broken arm on Cary to get the other side to come out of cover to investigate. Needless to say, Dean had not been amused.

"And rule number three!"

"Kick butt and take names!" The kids positively screamed then dived at the pile of primed water guns in a free for all to get the heavy hitters. There were extras so every kid got at least one.

The designated team leaders each grabbed a bucket filled with red or blue balloons and the two teams scattered to their bases. Dean watched and laughed the entire time. This was going to be so much fun.

* * *

Shelly was exhausted. She'd spent the entire day at the hospital waiting for her little brother, Owen to come out of surgery. When he'd been honorably discharged from the military after he'd been injured in his second tour in Afghanistan she'd thought she was finished worrying about him getting shot.

Then he'd just gone and joined the FBI. It seemed even though his big sis was quite finished with him being shot at, he wasn't.

It was just a through and through in the shoulder while he'd been chasing down a suspect with surgery to repair some minor muscle damage, but that didn't stop Shelly from nearly having a heart attack when she'd gotten the call as his next of kin.

Owen was safely ensconced in a hospital bed hooked up to one of those button powered morphine drips so he was feeling no pain, but still. Shelly was keyed up and all she really wanted to do was get Nathan, go home and cry a little bit before she had to make dinner.

She was walking up to the Braeden's front door when she heard the screaming and started to panic a little. Children screaming, an adult screaming… and laughing.

She pressed a hand to her chest to slow her heartbeat back to normal. When she was sure she had it under control she followed the noise around the side of the house to the back gate. It was locked, but that had never been much of a deterrent when she'd been a rebellious teen, so it wasn't much of one now that she was an uptight housewife.

Yes, she knew she was uptight. Sue her. It seemed like she'd forgotten how to unwind when her baby boy had almost died from a severe asthma attack at the age of two and a half.

She placed her foot on the horizontal slat of the gate and boosted up, her hands on the top of the wooden gate to steady herself as she looked over into the yard prepared to vault over if there was any danger.

It looked like full out warfare… with water balloons.

The kids were all running around in swimsuits and screaming their heads off with glee as they pumped super soakers and quick fired water pistols. Red and blue water balloons sailed through the air like hand grenades.

As Shelly watched, she realized the battle field was divided into two teams, the younger kids against the older kids. It seemed like the young ones were winning.

Trisha Walsh's little girl was leading a coordinated attack with Laurie Grant's twin boys with super soakers from one side while Shelly's own Nathan was directing an attack of red water balloons with Madison Strait's little boy.

The older kids seemed to be losing badly even though, with the exception of Nathan, the other team was composed of younger kids. Really it should have been a relatively evenly matched game; it was not. They were getting thoroughly trounced.

She stood on the gate and watched. Just when Shelly was sure the game would be over and one side would stand victorious, Dean Campbell came out the bushes on one side of the battlefield and started pelting both teams with a behemoth water gun the size of a rocket launcher, playfully maniacal laughter lighting up his face.

"Traitor!" Little Melanie suddenly bellowed, turning her gun on the new enemy.

"Get him!" yelled Errol Flynn as he too abandoned his previous adversary for this new threat.

Nathan stood from his crouch and cocked back an arm to launch a balloon grenade. "Attack!" He let it fly and Dean Campbell was hit in the chest and soaked.

Shelly watched long enough to know that Dean would inevitably go down under a pile of kids still laughing like a loon before she dropped from her perch and leaned against the gate.

She'd given explicit instructions that Nathan wasn't do to any strenuous activity. That he wasn't to be out in the sun longer than fifteen minutes. That he wasn't to have any sugar and judging by the empty pouches and plastic bottles of fruit flavored sugar drinks on the back porch that direction had obviously not been heeded either.

The sound of Nathan's laughter rose over the din and made her heart clench. It has been so long since she'd heard her son so free and joyful. It has been a long time since she didn't feel that gut gnawing, throat tightening anxiety at the thought of letting him out of her sight.

Dean Campbell's laughter rang clear and deep from the other side of gate and Shelly closed her eyes.

Was this really what she'd been reduced to? Was she really the type of mother that worried and hovered and monitored and controlled so much that she'd almost forgotten what the sound of her own son's carefree laughter sounded like?

She picked the bright sound out of the din once more and knew her answer.

Glancing down at her watch, Shelly realized that it was about two hours before any of the other parents would be around to pick up their kids and she came to a decision.

She walked away from sounds of childish battle and got back into her car and drove the three streets back to her home.

* * *

There was a mad scramble after their game of war had finally ended with the kids victorious and Dean thoroughly defeated lying on his back in the grass. The parents were going to start showing up any minute now and there was precious little time to get everyone dried off and redressed to go home.

There was precious little time to get Nathan looking like he hadn't just been involved in a battle royal with water guns, on a sugar high, in the sun for hours on end.

Seeing as they'd all bonded in their war against Dean, the kids took it upon themselves to help Nathan get ready to face his mother like nothing had ever happened.

Melanie took over Nathan's hair combing and gelling the tangled, windswept mess into submission. Sydney was directing Ben in the task of finishing all of Nathan's homework since Dean had taught the kid the fine art of forging handwriting. Errol, Cary, and Hugh were busy racing around the house putting away and downright hiding any and all evidence of outdoor fun or sugary treats. Thomas was stationed at the front entrance windows as the look out.

Dean and Clark were trying to stage the kitchen table and living room with healthy snacks (fruit and crackers) and educational board games (a dusty edition of Trivial Pursuits that was about five age levels too high for this demographic).

"She's here!" Thomas shouted over the barley controlled chaos of the cleanup effort as he peeked out of the curtained window. Thirty seconds later the doorbell rang.

There was a mad scramble as the kids stumbled over each other to get to their appointed staged positions around the board game in the living room and Dean finished tugging a clean (this time vomit free) shirt over his head on top on a pair of jeans that wouldn't be able to get up and walk away on their own.

Melanie shoved Nathan out of the hall bathroom as the boy was just finished hurriedly tucking the last corner of his shirt tails into his pants, his hair looked so neat and tidy a hurricane wouldn't have been able to ruffle it.

"You ready, kid?" Dean looked down at him and squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.

Nathan gave him a grave nod and hefted his backpack onto his shoulders, all his homework and emergency medical equipment stowed inside. He faced the door like he was about to face the firing squad.

Dean had to admire the kid's bravery. If he had a mom like Shelly St. James he'd have been scared shitless too.

Dean opened the door and found Shelly St. James on the other side looking tired and worn out and maybe a little sad.

"Mrs. St. James." Dean greeted.

"Mr. Campbell." Shelly nodded and forced a painful looking smile on her face. "Thank you for looking after Nathan."

Mildly stunned that the words didn't sound nearly as insincere as he'd have imagined, Dean answered back truthfully.

"It was absolutely no problem. Nate's a good kid. I'd be happy to have him any time. The other kids especially really enjoyed having him around."

A more genuine, less forced smile curved at Shelly's face then. She didn't look quite as bitchy or severe like that, Dean noted absently.

"That's good." Shelly said then turned to her son who had moved to her side, leaning into her hip. He was obviously glad to see her despite all the subterfuge. "Did you have fun, Nathan?"

"Yes, Mom." Nathan said with a small barely controlled spark of excitement in his voice, lighting up his face. "I had lots of fun." Then he back tracked. "After I finished my homework."

The slight softening of Shelly's face seemed to tighten a little more at that, but her expression cleared again and she swept a gentle hand over his impeccably styled hair. There was about a pound more hair gel in it now than there had been when she'd dropped him off that morning, and his cheeks were pink where the sunscreen had faded.

The thought of Dean Campbell or one of the other children trying to tame her son's nearly uncontrollable hair mildly amused her; though they did seem relatively successful at it. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen her beautiful son with sun kissed cheeks.

"That's good, sweetie. Let's go home and I'll tell you about Uncle Owen."

Dean watched them walk back to their car and lifted a hand in return when Nathan looked back at him from the passenger side and waved. He hoped the kid got to come back. It had been awesome seeing him come out of his shell and he fit in well with the group dynamic of the other kids. Plus Nathan had freaking loved it, Dean had seen as much in the kid's shining eyes and wide smile.

* * *

When the next morning dawned and Dean found himself watching over one more kid, he smiled.

Nathan was watching the trampoline action like approaching the concept required a complicated tactical maneuver while Melanie kept trying to tempt him onto it despite his obvious wariness of the thing. She'd taken him under her wing and the poor kid was two parts baffled and two parts blushing up a storm under her attentions.

Dean looked down at the envelope Shelly had handed him that morning and tore it open to find a check written out for a week's worth of daycare and a note.

The note read:

_Mr. Campbell,_

_There is an epinephrine pen, an inhaler, an extra set of clothes, and a swimsuit in Nathan's bag to be kept at your residence in case of emergency. _

_-Shelly St. James_

_P.S. Nice try, but a mother always finds out._

Dean looked between the note and the navy blue cameo swimsuit he'd found in the kid's bag and laughed.

* * *

END.


	5. Forest for the Trees

**Title**: Dean's Adventures in Babysitting: Forest for the Trees  
**Series**: Apple Pie Life  
**Rating**: PG  
**Word Count**: 6,271  
**Warning**: kid fic, OCs, BAMF!Dean, Parental!Dean, Cops, Lost and Found

**Summary**: The last thing Dean wanted to hear on a Sunday was that two of his kids were missing. But come Hell, high water, or dangerously observant cops, Dean was going to find them.

**A/N**: Timestamp to Dean's Adventures in Babysitting.

* * *

Sunday morning Dean sleeps in. He doesn't have his kids on Sunday and he uses this day to wallow in bed and remember what his life used to be like before his brother jumped in a box with the Devil riding inside him and his best friend went back to heaven with a shiny new badge and a shiny new gun. He drinks too much on Sundays, he sleeps too much on Sundays, and he can't bear to look at his car lest he break his promise to Sammy and climb behind the wheel and just never stop driving.

Ben mostly just tries to stay out of his way on Sundays. Errol stays over pretty much all week anyway so the boys tend to entertain themselves and Lisa while Dean's busy being depressed and alcoholic.

Ever since he started days with his kids (he refuses to use the term daycare) it had been universally acknowledged that Sundays were for family. The kids would stay home and hang with their parents and Dean would stay home and try not to shatter with the gaping hole in his heart where his ginormous baby brother used to be.

The parents knew this was Dean's day away from the kids (even if they didn't know exactly what he did with it) and they cherished the uninterrupted day with their kids before they had to go to work the next morning and the cycle started all over again.

So, with this routine established it was somewhat surprising when, at two o'clock in the afternoon, a third way through his bottle of whiskey and still in his boxers curled up in bed, Dean's cellphone rings. It was his new cell. The one only Lisa, Ben, the parents of Dean's kids, and Bobby knew the number of.

Dean grumbled, cursed and snatched the phone up before his ringtone of Metallica's _Am I Evil?_ could play through a third time.

A glance at the caller ID and he answered the phone with a puzzled frown. "Hello?"

"_Dean?_" Laurie Grant's voice came over the line sounding choked and quivery and just all kinds of worried and wrong.

"Laurie." Dean jolted up and threw his legs over the side of the bed. "What's wrong?"

"_Cary and Hugh_," she swallowed audibly and tried to modulated her voice into a semblance of composure, "_They- they wouldn't possibly be with you would they?_"

Dean's heart started to pump and his adrenaline was already sending him out of bed and snatching up the first set of moderately clean clothes he could get his hands on. "No, Laurie. They're not with me. What happened?"

"_I- they-_" She stumbled over her words and Dean listened hard to the background to figure out where she was while she gathered her thoughts. He could hear numerous voices in the background, probably cops if the boys were missing, and he could hear Laurie's ex-husband Frank, Cary and Hugh's father, angrily arguing with someone with an official dry sounding voice. It sounded like the cops were establishing a base of operations. She was at home then and they were treating this as a kidnapping.

"_I-I went to get them for b-breakfast this morning and their bedroom was empty, their window was open a-a-and-_" She stuttered out and gave a few painful sounding hitching breaths before she continued. "_I looked everywhere. I called Frank, I called all the other parents, I ran up and down the street calling for them but-…_"

"Alright, Laurie. Calm down. You did good." He soothed her through the phone as he fought to get his boots on. "We'll get the boys back. Do everything the cops say and I'll be there in ten minutes."

He could hear her suck in a shuddering breath. "_Thank you._" She gave a sob and the sound made Dean's heart clench. "_Thank you so much._"

"Ten minutes, Laurie." Dean repeated before he hung up and strode from his whiskey and depression stale room and out of the house toward the Impala.

* * *

When he pulled up to the Grant's house seven minutes and forty-two seconds later it was chaos. There were four cop cruisers parked on the street and people were streaming in and out of the front door on various errands. All of them with uniforms and badges and enough handcuffs that even Dean cringed at the through of having to pick his way out if it went south and he was recognized.

With that itch that all law enforcement gave him steadily building under his skin, Dean slipped his Colt .45 in the back of his pants, patted his left boot where his knife was secure to his leg and took a deep steadying breath. Two of his kids were missing, possibly kidnapped, possibly (and he was really hoping not) Monster-napped.

He was going to suck it up, do his goddamned job, and get his kids back.

Out of the Impala and across the street to the Grant's font lawn Dean barely made it onto the grass before Laurie came rushing out of the house barreling straight into his chest.

"Dean! Dean, they're gone!" She cried into his shoulder.

Stunned for a moment, Dean just wrapped his arms around her reflexively and patted her awkwardly on the back. "It's alright, Laurie. We'll get them back. I promise."

He looked up from her blonde head buried against him and saw Frank, the boys' father, watching them with a pinched look of jealousy and worry. Dean almost rolled his eyes.

If he had a nickel for every time he'd gotten the assessing, male dominance looks and crushing handshakes from his kids' fathers he would be a very rich man.

Dean eased Laurie out of his arms and guided her back over to her ex-husband. "Frank." He greeted and held out a hand.

He'd met Frank a number of times when the man had come to pick up Cary and Hugh on his days with them. He was a decent enough man if a little up tight. The guy was an honest to God tax accountant with a bow tie, sweater vest, and thick rimmed glasses that weren't actually hipster because they looked like he'd had them since he was in high school.

Frank was a decent enough guy, so he shook Dean's hand without the posturing. "Thanks for coming, Dean. You didn't have to. I'm pretty sure the police have everything covered."

Dean shrugged. "Hugh and Cary are under my protection part of the time. If I can do anything to help find them, I'm going to do it."

Frank gave him another assessing look, but just nodded and turned away to lead the way back into the house.

Ever since Dean had stopped Sydney Strait from being abducted by a child molester in the park the parents starting looking at Dean less and less as the ruggedly male-model handsome nanny and started seeing him more and more for what he really is; a mysterious, highly trained ex-drifter that would protect their kids like a rabid mama-bear on steroids.

Inside the house it was like walking into the setup for Dean's worst phobia… that wasn't Hell or hellhound related. Everywhere he looked a cop was standing, sitting, drinking coffee, talking on the phone, or looking over the house for clues. All Dean could do was try not to act overly suspicious and hope none of them had paid too much attention to the FBI's most wanted list about three years ago.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but we can't allow any outsiders into the investigation until we establish the cause for your sons' disappearance." A young detective that almost smelled green stepped up to them and looked like she was just itching for an excuse to arrest someone.

Laurie, apparently, didn't like her much. "My sons are missing, Detective Boltz. They might be God knows where with God knows who and you want to tell me who I can and can't have comforting me? I don't think so, little missy!"

"Whoa!" Dean stepped between the women before Laurie started to physically take out her frustrations on the poor flustered detective with her lethally manicured talons and start a cat fight. Hot, but definitely not helpful at the moment. "It's alright, Laurie. I'll just have a cup of tea with you," read: question you for information, "then I'll get out of the cops' way and let them do their thing," read: conduct my own investigation cause the cops are incompetent.

Laurie read him perfectly and composed herself enough to sneer at the sputtering Detective and usher Dean into the kitchen before the cop could protest again.

Frank started the tea more as something to do than anybody really wanting any and watched closely as Laurie wilted from her indignation and seemed to want to crumble into herself.

"Do you really think you can help find my sons?" Frank asked when it didn't seem like Laurie was going to say anything.

Dean figured it was best to be honest. There was something about Frank's piercing, analyzing stare that said he would be able to tell if Dean was bullshitting him. The intensity of the look reminded Dean of Castiel.

He pushed down the pang of missing that thought brought up and turned back to business.

"Honestly, I don't know. Not until I do some investigating. If it's just a run of the mill kidnapper there isn't much I can do that the cops won't be able to." He said and knew he would have to tread carefully over his next words. "But if it's something else, I might be a bit more help than the cops."

He got a confused look from Frank at that, but Laurie obviously didn't care about parsing through the various implications and meanings of Dean's words. She didn't care about the minutia as long Cary and Hugh were brought back to her.

Dean sighed and decided that he had better start asking his questions before that young detective got her shit together enough to alert a superior to the outsider in the Grant's kitchen.

"Laurie, it's very important that you answer my questions very honestly. I know they'll be a little weird, but anything, even if you think it can't possibly be related, might be important."

"I know. I went through this already with the cops." Laurie took a deep steadying breath and nodded that she was ready. "I'll do my best."

"Have there been any flickering lights, cold spots, strange skittering noises in the walls? Things being moved or gone missing? Drawers or cabinets left open or dumped?" Laurie definitely looked taken aback by Dean's line of questioning, but she steeled herself to answer, her resolve to find her children stronger than her reserve about the oddity of the questions.

"I had to change a light bulb in the living room yesterday, I keep the air conditioning at a constant seventy-four in the summer, and this morning I was trying to get breakfast ready and found an entire box of pop tarts and a box of Zebra Cakes missing from the pantry."

She answered his questions succinctly and gravely as if the information would somehow be the magic clue to lead them straight to Cary and Hugh. Frank looked like he wanted to question their validity, but he kept his silence with a small skeptical frown on his face.

Dean felt a bit of his clenched muscles loosen, but not much. It wasn't a ghost or poltergeist then. There was still child eating monsters, sadistic demons, and perverted humans to rule out.

"Have any neighborhood pets gone missing? Have you heard odd noises in the woods in your backyard? Seen anything that looked not quite right to be an animal lurking around out there or around the house?" He's almost positive if kids and pets had started missing recently he would have noticed since he'd been keeping an eye on the area, but it never hurts to ask.

"Mrs. Figgs' cat, Mitsy, got run over last week and the boys found a possum in our outside grill two nights ago." Laurie answered quick and clear, her hands gripping the counter behind her hard, her eyes trained unwaveringly on Dean, waiting impatiently for the next round of questioning.

"How about smells?" Dean asked knowing that if any of Laurie's answers were in the affirmative then they had a major problem on their hands. "Smell any sulfur or rotten eggs? Anyone being overly friendly to you or the boys? See anyone whose eyes seemed to flash black or red? Even for an instant, so fast that you think it's a trick of the light?"

_Please say, no. Please say, no._ Dean chanted in head as he waited for Laurie to speak. He could take down a demon, fuck knows he's had enough experience with them, but when has any demon been just wreaking havoc for the hell of it lately. No, it's almost always been part of a bigger, badder plot the last few years. Dean's not sure he can deal with something like that after everything; after the freaking Apocalypse.

"No!" Laurie huffed seeming to have suddenly lost her cobbled together calm. "Nothing like that. No people, no smells, no eyes, nothing! There's absolutely nothing and I don't- I don't know what- How could they just be gone!?"

Dean spared a split second to be thankful for having his demon questions answered with vehement no's, but quickly turned his attention back to comforting Laurie.

"Alright. It's not your fault and we will get them back, Laurie." He said as he wrapped steadying hands around her arms and forced her to look into his eyes. "I promise you, Laurie, if the cops don't find your boys, I will."

She took a stuttering breath then nodded shakily. "Okay. Alright. What else?" Frank looked utterly pessimistic with skepticism and downright frustrated as he tried to work out how most of Dean's questions pertained in any way to his missing boys. One determined, steely, slightly desperate glare from Laurie silenced him before he could even open his mouth to demand answers of his own.

_Good girl._ Dean's lips twitched wanting to smile. "Now I need to get a look at the boys' room."

"Mr. and Mrs. Grant."

Dean felt his muscles clench at that commanding voice and quickly released Laurie turning to see the detective from the park standing in the doorway. Detective Hart, the one that had recognized Dean and subsequently turned a blind eye.

His heart suddenly pounding with the knowledge that he was now walking a very tight rope, Dean schooled his face into a picture of innocent, concerned neighbor and tried to look as nonthreatening as possible. By Detective Hart's stiff stance and guarded expression, Dean would say he probably failed rather miserably.

"I apologize for my partner's attitude earlier, Mrs. Grant, but I really must insist that all nonfamily members stay outside of the investigation." Hart said, his eyes not leaving Dean for more than the second it took to acknowledge the worried parents in the room.

Laurie opened her mouth to protest again, but Frank seemed to have picked up on the tense atmosphere between the other two men and put a silencing hand on her shoulder. "Of course, Detective. Dean was just coming to give my wife some support."

"I was just about to leave anyway." Dean spoke up deciding that a strategic retreat would benefit him more than running the risk of Hart arresting him for being a dead murderer, always in the wrong place at the wrong time. He gave Laurie a quick hug, whispering that he was going to keep investigating in her ear before he pulled away and returned her relieved, thankful smile. He shook Frank's hand and turned to Detective Hart with unrevealing neutrality on his face.

"I'll walk you out." Hart said, obviously not giving up the opening and turned to lead the way out the front door. They walked in silence and came to a stop just off the porch; front yard seemingly deserted the rest of the fuzz inside or off doing police-like things.

"Mr. Campbell," Hart greeted him warily. "What is your business with the Grants?" His voice was level and grave, his stance adjusted just enough to telegraph that if he didn't like Dean's answer he was ready to attempt to put him in cuffs.

Dean sighed and rubbed a tired hand through his hair. He was really getting tired of having to run from the cops. "Laurie called me this morning asking if the boys were over at mine. I drove over to offer my help in finding them."

Hart's brows furrowed, but he nodded. "Ignoring the fact that I'm pretty sure you're a dead serial killer, why would you care about the Grants' boys enough to risk possible exposure and arrest?"

"I'm sure you've been doing your homework since the last time we met." Dean said with confidence. "If you're half the detective I think you are, you've found the massive holes in that joke of an FBI file. You know I'm innocent." Grimacing he amended. "Or at least innocent of murder."

Hart looked like just having this conversation was going to give him an ulcer. Dean knew the feeling. "Be that as it may, you still didn't answer my question, Mr. _Campbell_. Why are you here, why do you care, and what could you possible do that we can't to find those boys?"

This was tricky. Dean was going to choose his words very carefully if he didn't want to be slapped in a straightjacket, cuffed in the back of a squad car, or just plain shot.

"I care about Cary and Hugh, because I spend Monday through Friday, eight-thirty to five, and Saturday, ten to three, with them and seven other kids. I'm here because they are under my protection, they are my kids, and nobody and nothing messes with i_my/i_ kids." He said throwing caution to the wind and not even trying to bottle up the righteous fury and protective possessiveness sharpening his words. "And I'm going to find those boys, because, from what I can tell, you've got jack for leads and this is what I've been trained to do since I was four years old."

Dean's words had planted themselves in the yard between the two men like pikes, strong and bold and dangerous. Detective Hart didn't respond, waging an internal debated. There was a long moment of silence before Hart seemed to come to a decision.

He knew the statistical likelihood of finding the boys alive after twenty-four hours. He knew that even now the likely hood of even finding them alive was quickly dwindling by the minute. Hart knew that they had precisely what Campbell said they had; jack with a side order of shit.

If they had a hope of finding those boys before they chances of survival dwindled to nothing it was time to think outside the box. Well, you couldn't get more outside the box than Dean Campbell.

When he finally spoke he was not asking a question. "You've already questioned Mrs. Grant. You mentioned needing to see the boys' room."

Dean could have sworn his brain had paused in shock. Recovering quickly Dean nodded. "I need to look for clues myself. No offense, but cops don't really know to look for the things I look for."

Hart didn't look like he took offense, but there was a warning against any truly disparaging words from Dean in his eyes. "Civilians aren't allowed in active crime scenes, much less deceased suspected serial killers."

Huffing in frustration and rubbing agitatedly at his hair, Dean almost missed the leading look on Hart's face.

"As such, I will be grabbing a file from my car for the next," he glanced down at his watch, "seven and a half minutes. Their room is upstairs, second window on the left side of the house."

Dean wasted five seconds watching, stunned, as Hart strolled leisurely to his car parked across the street before he kicked himself into gear and darted around the left side of the house, scurrying up the old oak tree that reached up to the open window on the second floor.

Climbing into Cary and Hugh's room, Dean noticed several things first. No sulfur on the windowsill. No smell of ozone in the air. No signs of a struggle. And absolutely no blood. All four very good signs.

The room was relatively neat, just a few toys scattered on the floor, beds unmade, and a couple of books lying open face down on one of the matching bedside tables. If it weren't for the fact that the boys were missing, there wouldn't have been anything wrong with this scene.

Dean stepped deeper into the room and took a closer look. The boys had to share a closet, but it seemed fairly evenly divided, their mom obviously the one doing most of the putting away and tidying up. There were almost miniature sized matching desks on either side of the room and above them cork boards with pictures and drawings and various mementos stuck to them.

Striding over to one of the boards Dean scanned the pictures. Most of them seemed to be from several different Boy Scout outings, Cary and Hugh dressed in their uniforms with Frank or other chaperones posing with them. In one picture in particular the boys, in plain clothes, with Frank and Laurie were standing in front of a cliff rising high behind them. Cary and Hugh were grinning from ear to ear each brandishing a brand-new Leatherman set with utility knives, flashlights and compasses all fitted neatly into the individual pockets. Their parents looked proud and they all looked undeniably happy.

Unpinning the picture, Dean flipped it over.

_Hugh, Cary, Mom, and Dad, 7__th__ Birthday Family Campout_

A quick calculation in his head and Dean cursed. It wouldn't have been long after this picture was taken that Frank moved out and the divorce was finalized. This picture is the last photographic proof of an outwardly happy and whole family.

Flipping it back over, Dean searched the picture for clues as to where it was taken. A quick scan and he'd seen enough, he let out a sigh of relief. He could just barely see the railing of a deck at the top of the cliff in the corner of the picture. This was in the greenbelt, right behind the Grant's house. It separated two halves of the neighborhood; the more expensive houses were perched on top of the cliffs overlooking the greenbelt.

Discarding the picture and turning back to the room, Dean looked it over again with searching eyes. On the bookshelf there were two Leatherman shaped dust voids next to a wooden model t-rex, in the closet there were two empty places in the lineup of shoes, and glancing at the desks Dean noticed that instead of standard clutter it seemed like the kids had completely emptied their school books out onto their desks; their backpacks were nowhere to be found.

Dean was pretty sure he knew why the pop tarts and Zebra Cakes had gone missing from the kitchen as well. Can't go camping without provisions, after all.

Great. At least now he knew for sure it wasn't a monster, ghost, demon, or pervert that had taken the boys. The boys weren't taken at all.

Through the window and down the tree, he was almost to his car before Hart caught up to him.

"Campbell!" Hart called after him and chased him to the Impala. "Campbell, what are you doing?"

Dean spared him a quickly look before popping the trunk and snatching Sam's duffle up, unzipping it to dump the clothes out. He hadn't touched the thing since Stull, the memories too fresh and painful, but he didn't have time to angst over the neatly packed memorial to his brother. Cary and Hugh were running out of time.

"I've got a lead." He replied curtly.

"What lead?" Hart demanded, impatient and mildly alarmed. "What are you doing?"

"I think I might know where Hugh and Cary are." Dean said as he rested his battered first aid kit from its compartment in the trunk and rustled up a couple of weathered canteens from the disorganized depths, before stuffing it all and a ratty slightly stained motel blanket into the duffle, zipping it up. He had half a mind to grab more ammo or at least a sawed-off just for paranoia's sake, but Detective Hart was practically breathing down his neck and he didn't want to deal with the massive worms that opened can would release.

"Campbell, you can't just go off after them. We have to confirm and strategize and-"

"And waste time, yeah, I know how the burocratic red tape works. Even for a supposed kidnapping case." Dean cut him off and slammed the trunk shut before darting back across the street and back over into the Grants' yard. Hart following him all the way to the outside faucet where the garden hose was hooked up.

"Wait. Supposed? How do you know it's not a kidnapping?" Hart asked as he watched Dean turn on the faucet and start rinsing out and refilling the canteens. It seemed like the last thing they'd held was just water, which Dean was grateful for. He didn't want to have to trek after two seven year old boys without two filled canteens because they'd been permanently stained with noxious, ass tasting, anti-hex juice or something.

"I don't." Dean finished filling up the second canteen and turned off the water, shoving the canteens back into the duffle. "I'm following a lead that would _suggest_ that it's not a kidnapping. But just in case, you should hold the fort in case there's a ransom call or something, eh?"

Dean stood and slapped a mockingly companionable hand on Hart's shoulder before he turned away and started around the side of the house to the backyard.

He didn't quite make it that far before Hart lost his patience with Dean's reticence. He grabbed him executing a shockingly fast maneuver and slammed Dean up against the side of the house with a forearm, steely and immovable across his chest.

Dean was taller than Hart by a few inches, but that didn't do anything to detract from the threat clear in the older man's brown eyes.

"Explain yourself now, Campbell, or I will personally arrest you for tampering with a crime scene and impeding a police investigation."

Stunned frozen for a moment, Dean concentrated on remaining loose and nonthreatening. When Hart didn't let up, Dean weighed his options and went with the road he traveled the least.

"There were no signs of a struggle; no blood, or broken furniture. The boys are Boy Scouts and were given Leatherman's for their last birthday. Both sets were missing from their shelf along with their backpacks, and a pair each of their shoes. Laurie told me earlier that a box of pop tarts and Zebra Cakes were missing from her pantry this morning." He took a breath and gave the last piece of evidence that would supply a motive to the means. "The boys both have a picture of them together with their parents camping in the greenbelt for their birthday. The last family picture taken before Laurie and Frank finalized their divorce."

Detective Hart stood silent and frozen, his arm keeping Dean from moving, for a long moment as he processed all that Dean _Campbell_ had just told him.

"And you got all of that from little more than five minutes in the boys' room." He stated, grave and dry.

Dean shrugged under his hold. "Usually I'm working with a couple of obscure newspaper articles, completely unhelpful witnesses, and evidence contaminated by so many people I wouldn't be able to tell a dusting of sulfur from dust motes if I snorted it up my nose."

Hart had absolutely no idea what Dean had just said, but he'd gotten the general gist. Stepping back from Campbell he eyed him sternly. "You still can't be sure it's not a kidnapping."

"You're right." Dean said, adjusting his duffle on his shoulder and turning back toward the greenbelt on the other side of the back gate. "That's why I'm going to investigate this totally unreliable lead and you are going to stay here with the real detectives."

Hart wasn't so sure he liked the note of sarcasm in Dean's voice, but he didn't protest, just watched Dean vault over the back gate with little effort. He sighed, resigned.

"At least let me give you my number so you can call if you find them."

One of Dean's hands waved dismissively through the air above the gate from the other side. "Already got it, Sargent Friday. You ain't the only one that does his homework."

Dean Campbell disappeared entirely with those last words and Hart rubbed at his face tiredly. He hoped to hell he wasn't wrong to trust Campbell with this. He hoped his gut instinct screaming that the file on the Winchesters was just all kinds of conflicting circumstantial evidence and too quickly disregarded witness statements wasn't wrong either.

Two little boys' lives depended on it.

* * *

Dean followed the rough trail through three wrong turns, two dead ends, one abrupt drop off, and one jump across a small creek. Finally three hours later, Dean came out of the trees to a small ravine with a mostly dry creek bed running through the middle and moderately sized cliffs rising up on either side.

He was in the right place.

Looking to the cliff on his right he scanned its craggy sides till he saw something that looked familiar from the picture. Halfway up the rock was a smallish cave nearly covered by a tenacious mountain laurel that was clinging to the side of the cliff. Now, if he was a couple of frustrated depressed seven year old boys trying to recapture a time when their family was whole and their parents were still together, then that little cave right there would be where Dean would hide out.

It took twenty minutes to find the trail that looked like only fearless kids and mountain goats would even think about traversing. It took Dean another forty-five minutes to pick and climb his way up the side of the cliff. When he finally made it to the out cropping Dean's legs were shaking and he was forcefully reminded why he hated camping and heights.

Absolutely refusing to look over the edge and back down into the little creek bed, Dean dropped his duffle off his shoulder and turned his attention to the inside of the cave.

"I got to tell you, dudes. You two sure know how to find a hiding place."

"Dean!" Hugh and Cary shouted in surprise looking simultaneously relieved, miserable and guilty.

"Yeah." Dean sighed, in equal relief to find the boys actually there, intact and seemingly unharmed. "Yeah, it's me."

It didn't take very long to assess any damage the boys might have accrued during their little runaway camping adventure. Cary had a lightly sprained ankle from the climb up and Hugh had a tummy ache from too many Zebra Cakes and no water.

Dean wrapped Cary's ankle in an ace bandage from his med kit and made both boys drink at least half of the canteens before giving Hugh an antacid to settle his stomach. All in all, the whole ordeal seemed more traumatizing than damaging. The boys were quiet through the triage and when everything settled down once more there was a long awkward silence like they were just waiting to be reprimanded.

Shifting to sit against the cave wall between the boys, Dean stretched out his legs and sipped from one of the canteens before putting the boys out of their anticipatory misery and breaking the silence.

"Do you guys want to tell me why you decided to go camping in the middle of the night?" He asked leadingly, not sounding particularly angry like other adults would. Just curious and maybe a little understanding.

Hugh took in a shuddering breath and looked down at his dirty hands when he spoke. "We just wanted it to go back to the way it was." He said. "When mom and dad still liked each other."

Dean's heart gave a little pang at the sadness in the little boy's voice.

"We went camping here just before Dad moved out." Cary continued. "We thought…"

"We thought that maybe if we went camping out here again it would all just…"

"Go away?" Dean finished for the boys quietly. They looked at him sadly then looked back down at their hands. "You guys know that no matter what your mom and dad love you, right?"

Hugh huffed like that was a stupid question. "Yeah, we know." He said rolling his eyes before sobering. "They just don't love each other anymore."

And that, Dean figured, was the crux of the matter. The boys just wanted their family back together. They didn't want to have to divide their time between two houses. They wanted to wake up in the morning to their mom and their dad making breakfast. They wanted to spend Saturdays hiking through the greenbelt with their dad pointing out wildlife and their mom snapping pictures all the while.

Dean could recite exorcisms from memory in four dead languages, rebuild a '67 Chevy from the ground up, kill demons and angels, cheat death hundreds of times, and save the world from the biblical apocalypse. But he couldn't get Cary and Hugh's parents back together.

It made him feel kind of useless.

Rubbing tiredly at his face, Dean wrapped his arms around the boys' shoulders and pulled them against his sides. They collapsed against him like he was only thing keeping them upright underneath all this pain and sadness their parents' divorce layered on them. The thought made his heart hurt.

"I'm sorry I can't help you with that." He told them sincerely. "I can't tell you why your mom and dad stopped being in love, but I can tell you that they are worried sick about you both right now."

He felt the boys' bony little shoulders hunch in shame against his ribs.

"What do you say I take you guys back home? I think you guys have had enough adventure for one day."

There was a small pause, before Cary and Hugh nodded. "Okay."

"Okay." Dean gave them a reassuring squeeze before pushing them both up to standing and beginning the logistics of trekking back down the cliff to the ground and through the forest home.

Hugh and Dean both helped Cary limp his way down the cliff trail, it was slow going. Dean had to pace himself to two injured, exhausted, and inexperienced seven year olds. When they finally hit the bottom an hour later all three of them were tired and not looking forward to the walk home.

Surprisingly enough, however, with Hugh carrying his and his brother's backpacks and Dean carrying his duffle with Cary on his back to spare further aggravating the boy's ankle the trip was quicker than Dean had estimated.

Two hours later, Dean could hear the sounds of suburban life once again and he figured he should probably contact Detective Hart to tell him the boys were okay.

A frustratingly vague text message from an unknown number was all the warning Hart received before he was watching through the living room windows as a dead suspected serial killer escorted the Grants' missing children out of the greenbelt in the backyard.

_boys ok. c u n 5._

Laurie spent all of a split second being shocked immobile before she almost broke her own backdoor down to get to her kids, her ex-husband, Frank, not more than a step behind her.

By the time Hart and the rest of the cops got outside Laurie and Frank were on their knees holding their sons and holding each other and all four of them were saying things like:

"We were so worried."

"We're sorry."

"Love you so much."

"Don't ever do that again."

"We won't, we won't."

And all through the heart warming reunion Dean Campbell stood back watching the scene like it was all the reward he would ever need. Like just the fact that he could bring Cary and Hugh back to their parents, bring Laurie and Frank's boys back home, was what made his entire life worth it.

Hart watched it all and suddenly little bits and pieces of the slipshod puzzle that was the FBI file on the Winchesters started to make complete sense. It felt like he'd been trying to figure out a jigsaw with the middle pieces all turned upside down, but now that some of them were right side up, the picture was starting to look clearer and clearer.

"Sir, should we arrest him?" Detective Boltz was so green she smelled like it, but she was a good cop and Hart knew she had plenty of promise. She just needed to learn that "the book" didn't always have all the answers.

"No, Detective." Hart said, his eyes still pinned on Dean as Laurie finally composed herself enough to reach up and grab onto one of his hands and start thanking him so profusely and earnestly that the poor guy's face looked it was about to catch fire he was blushing so hard.

"It looks like, today, Mr. Campbell is the hero."

* * *

End.


End file.
